Retribution
by Lord Zeuss
Summary: Two Cathar, one trying to forget and the other trying more than anything to remember, are brought together by events that threaten to shatter both of their lives.
1. Collisions

_I. Collisions_

A prick in the back of his mind alerted Revan that something was wrong. Behind the cold mask, his red eyes danced across the scene of the raging battle before him, trying to ascertain what he could be sensing. His average-sized fleet had come under sudden attack by a Republic battle group that was waiting for them to drop out of hyperspace.

After months and months of Republic retreats halfway into battle, Revan's warrior blood was aroused by the prospect of a full-on battle. So far his foes had not disappointed, deploying their full strength in an engagement for the first time in nearly a year. A quad of capital ships were in close while a smattering of light cruisers, destroyers, and frigates were stretched in a loose line attempting to close around the Sith fleet. Revan's own ships, shimmering gray and silver Interdictors, heavy cruisers, and a battle carrier, were responding to the welcome challenge with energetic gusto. Silver Sith and maroon Republic fighters swarmed in droves over and around both sides' capital ships, each trying to clear space for their bombers. Massive energy bombs were hurled from the cannons of Republic and Sith ships, fiery splashes of yellow, red, and green light erupting as they impacted deflector shields, searing orange and red when the charges punched through armor.

The Republic was holding its own remarkably well against his forces, Revan reflected. Even for all the Sith's vast superiority in armor, firepower, strategy, and numbers, the Republic fleet was not backing down, nor was it being beaten. Whenever it seemed as if his greater strength would deal the opponent a crippling blow, the Republic would open up an unexpected and surprisingly successful counter-attack that would set his own forces reeling for a moment. Two of his cruisers had already been lost to just such attacks.

Revan absently scratched his hair beneath the dark hood he wore over his head, bothered by his undefinable feeling. There was something askew about the battle at hand, some presence in the Force that made the streaks of short fur on his arms stand on end.

Directly across the battle scene from his heavy cruiser _Isonzo_, Malak's ship _Nochzen_ loomed like a massive predator, dealing harshly with the two Republic ships in the line attempting to roll up the Sith flanks. For the most part, Revan gave Malak free reign to do as he would in battle. He respected Malak as a ruthless warrior and a cunning commander, and letting him run free in combat usually accomplished more than trying to shackle him to any sort of strategy. Malak among a Republic fleet was like fire to a field of dry grass; his hunger for destruction was insatiable and matched only by his desire for power and greatness.

_Isonzo_ was suddenly shaken by a massive blast, forcing Revan to grab hold of the nearby rail. He turned from the observation window to peer down at the bridge crew in the sunken command deck, about to demand a status report, but a Sith officer quickly spoke up to inform him of the latest situation.

"We've lost port shields, Lord Revan!"

Revan hissed. "Divert power from the life-support systems on decks eight through fifteen and reestablish the shields immediately!"

"Aye sir, Lord Revan!" Decks eight through fifteen were primarily crew's quarters. The pale-faced officer, barely more than an adolescent, didn't dare dispute his orders.

Revan shouted more orders for the concentration of defensive firepower to protect the vulnerable sections of his ship, pacing the raised catwalk above the bridge crew's stations as he did so, causing nervous sweat to bead on the necks of every crew member who drew his attention.

Suddenly, another alarm was raised. The chief security officer gave his own status report. "Hull breach! We've been boarded!"

Revan gracefully leaped down to the security station to see for himself, spooking his subordinate. The man edged a few steps away to give Revan room, but not daring to retreat too far. Rather than bother to ask the man for specifics, he scanned the display with his sharp, attentive eyes. It was a small boarding craft that had punctured one of the lightly-armored sections just below a main gun deck. Somehow, the ship had run the gauntlet of _Isonzo_'s expert gunners' defensive flak fire.

That meant only one thing: Jedi.

Revan snarled and turned away from the security station, leaping back up to the catwalk where he resumed pacing.

"Raise the _Nochzen_," he ordered the communications officer. In short order, his apprentice's glowing hologram appeared before him. "Malak," he said, "the Jedi have finally made their move. She is here, I can feel it. The time is upon us."

Malak's face contorted in what would have been a smile had he had a mouth. "The last desperate ploy of the Jedi. I have waited for this," he announced. "I will join you shortly to take her, Revan. These Republic dogs cannot occupy my guns for much longer."

Malak's hologram shut off. Revan smiled himself, his primly-trimmed beard rustling against the inside of his mask with the movement of his face. In the meantime, while he waited for the Jedi reach him, he did not have to make things easy for them.

"Security teams to the breach immediately," he ordered. "Send the apprentices. They are so eager to taste Jedi blood, this will be their time."

* * *

Bastila Shan stared in momentary shock as she watched Master Vash slice off the heads of the nearest two Sith soldiers. She just couldn't believe how casually, how detachedly the Jedi Master had ended two lives. Vash was the first one out, and upon her action, the rest of the Jedi team immediately started fanning out from the insertion point.

"Padawan!" the Jedi Master called to her, jolting Bastila out of her momentary daze.

She chastised herself for losing focus. This was war, she reminded herself, people died in war whether or not the Jedi wished it. Heeding Vash's terse rebuke, Bastila renewed her effort at maintaining her all-important Battle Meditation. For the briefest of instants she felt a flash of pride at being able to provide the extra bit of strength the Jedi and the Republic needed to succeed in this mission. Her unique abilities had made this raid possible, and while she continually reminded herself that it was only her fair contribution, there were times such as now when she was proud of what she could do to contribute.

Again, Bastila silenced her mind, focusing on the power. Always before when she'd been projecting her power to sway a battle in her favor, she'd been deeply ensconced in the safety of a Republic battle group, behind three solid feet of reinforced durasteel armor. Maintaining the concentration her Battle Meditation required while in the middle of a hot zone was something she could never have adequately prepared for.

Nor was seeing the dead in front of her. She'd never been up this close to the gritty bloodshed she knew existed at the heart of every battle, no matter how ingenious the strategy. Ultimately, it was about killing the enemy, and until now she'd never had to be in the middle of it before.

Her Jedi training demanded silence from her mind. There was to be no reflection, no pondering, no meaningless deviations into the treacherous realm of fantasy, maintaining the link of her power was to be her sole focus. Bastila forcibly emptied herself of all feeling and every conscious thought she could conceivably stifle, leaving only a void where the Force existed. The sights and sounds of the battle around her then meant nothing to her.

Sith security measures the Jedi team had encountered so far were little more than toy soldiers with guns, no match for the professional ease with which each Jedi present could handle their lightsabres. Even for Bastila, enshrouded in her cloak of concentration, it took little effort to ward off the sluggish bolts of blaster fire that came her way. An instinctive flick of her wrists and the danger was averted and other Jedi would take care of the threats ahead.

They were penetrating deep into the ship, their immediate objective being the core turbolift system along the ship's spine that would take them to the bridge, when Bastila noticed resistance suddenly thicken. It happened so fast and with such unexpected strength, that Bastila was forced to abandon her concentration on the link temporarily and look to her own survival.

They came in from all sides, Sith apprentices all, and soon had the entire Jedi team fighting for their very lives. Master Vash was set upon first by three, then four, and more joined the fray. Her sky blue lightsabre danced and crackled with energy as she met her opponents' attack with graceful skill, not yielding but stubbornly holding her own.

Bastila herself was confronted by two of the black-robed, masked, and cowled apprentices. There were so few discernible features visible that it was frighteningly easy for Bastila dehumanize them in her mind and make the process of neutralizing - even killing - them much simpler. Her heart pounded in her chest, sweat beaded on her forehead as she panted, swinging her amber blade to ward off her enemies' lightsabres.

As she'd been taught, she held back their attacks and waited for an opening, a gap in their technique, for her to exploit and end the battle with as few blows as possible, thus preserving her own strength. She was an apt student of the lightsabre arts, and rapidly dissected the Sith's combat style. Parrying their blows, Bastila moved in quickly with speedy attacks of her own, disarming one Sith and killing the other.

A cry of pain caught her attention for a moment, a Jedi fell clutching his leg, smoking from a lightsabre burn, as he tried to fend off his opponent. Bastila shut him off from her mind as the Sith apprentice quickly ran him through.

Against the onslaught of neophyte Sith, the Jedi team made slow progress. Already they had lost one of their number, and the Sith pressure was relentless. But still Master Vash pressed on, inspiring the rest of them by her tireless spirit. The team assembled into a ragged formation yet again, attempting to protect Bastila, who knew without being told what was expected of her.

Momentarily free from attack, Bastila attempted to empty her mind and bring forth her power once again. She was tiring, and it was becoming a physical burden on her to maintain such a high level of concentration, especially in the middle of the heated battle. But she knew she had to do it, if she could not, they would all die in the bowels of the Sith ship.

Forcibly, Bastila shut out the world outside and opened herself to the void within where only her power existed. For the briefest of instants, she was able to get through and form the connections she needed. She gasped at the strain it put on her body; it was like having a house dropped on her shoulders. But she felt the power flowing, doing its work for her allies. After a few minutes, the Sith began to melt away from before them, enormous pockets of little to no resistance opening up, gaps the Jedi could exploit.

By the time the Jedi team finally reached one of the core turbolifts, they had lost only two of their number. Bastila collapsed gratefully in exhaustion onto the deck once the lift began moving, carrying them toward their eventual confrontation with the Dark Lord himself. She was trying with all her heart not to think about the looming encounter, but the dread kept slipping in, polluting her mind.

Despite her Battle Meditation, all the Jedi were winded, and equally grateful for the pause in combat the turbolift was providing. Vash, however, cast a concerned eye at Bastila, the only one who couldn't keep to her feet and was kneeling on the floor, her arms held limply at her sides. Trying to control her own panting so as to appear stronger for the young Jedi, Vash knelt softly down next to Bastila.

"It's so hard, Master Vash," Bastila whispered, holding her head. "This isn't like anything I've ever had to do before. I don't think I was ready for this. Trying to hold my power with no distractions is one thing; this is entirely different."

Vash smiled tensely. "It's really no different, Padawan." Confused, Bastila met her eyes. "Only different in your mind," Vash clarified.

Bastila sighed. "Yes, Master Vash. I will continue trying."

"Do--" Vash corrected.

"--or do not. There is no try," Bastila finished, sighing ruefully again. "Yes, Master."

Vash smiled, fuller this time. "You are doing wonderfully, Padawan."

* * *

Why wasn't it moving! Revan cursed under his breath as he watched the _Nochzen_ not moving. Once they lost shields, Malak had handily taken care of the feeble Republic ships facing him, ostensibly freeing him from his "task." Now, instead of coming to the rendezvous, Malak's ship was sitting idly, picking at stragglers attempting to limp from the main battlefield; a tactic so unlike Malak it made Revan hiss in frustration. To compound matters, he could no longer raise _Nochzen_ on comm. He supposed it was possible, even likely, that their array had been damaged. But it was equally likely he had simply instructed his crew to ignore any communications.

Malak's strange battle strategies had proven a boon before, so Revan had refrained from demanding him to conform to his own, but this had the makings of a serious problem. Revan did not take lightly problems he should have fixed before they became problems.

He could sense the Jedi drawing closer with each moment, and Malak was out of the picture. Revan snorted to himself. Very well, then, he would take this girl's power for himself. He had given his apprentice all the opportunity he would, and Malak chose for reasons unknown not to take it, despite how eager he had been to have such power within his grasp.

The Jedi drew close. Revan could sense their approach; they were about to break upon the bridge. Yet he did nothing, simply kept staring out into the battle, watching the _Nochzen_ slowly, finally, beginning to move.

_You're too late, Malak,_ Revan said to his apprentice under his breath.

Behind him, at the other end of the room, the blast doors opened to reveal the team of Jedi, the would-be assassins. Revan didn't bother turning to face them, he gestured with a gauntleted hand and ten of his personal guard melted away from the walls at the perimeter, igniting their double-tipped sabrestaffs as they moved into a rigid line to block the Jedi.

Revan had personally selected each of them, and he knew from personal experience that they were the premiere masters of the fiendish sabrestaff technique. Still, against the Jedi on this particular occasion, he didn't expect them to succeed. Victory was nigh impossible when pitted against one with Battle Meditation on their side. But still, they would do what was needed.

The bridge erupted into a multitude of lightsabre duels as the combatants clashed blades. One by one, Jedi and Sith fell from mortal strikes, the numbers of both sides thinning. At first, it seemed the outlandishly exotic sabre form displayed by Revan's guard would win the day against the ill-prepared Jedi, but after sustaining initial losses, they slowly began wearing down their opponents, soon scoring kill after kill.

Growling in sudden ferocity, Revan turned, ignited his long crimson blade, and leaped into the fray in one sinuous motion. As a Jedi cut down one of his personal guard, Revan landed beside him and thrust his red lightsabre into the Jedi's heart, eliciting a surprised yelp and a gurgling last breath as the Jedi fell lifeless.

He spun, casting a howling rope of Force lightning at the nearest Jedi, the sheer power of it hurling the unfortunate into the far wall, where he writhed screaming in pain. Deftly twirling his lightsabre, Revan flowed forward, striking out at the weakest Jedi that met his attack. Within a matter of seconds, he had put down three Jedi.

Suddenly, his assault was met by the crystal blue blade of none other than Jedi Master Vash, dogged determination on her face as she squared off against him, Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith. He roared in exhilaration as he clashed blades with one of the foremost Masters of the Jedi Order. As more of his guard fell away, several Jedi tried to capitalize on his preoccupation with Vash, but he fluidly sidestepped their attacks, slicing into them with his own blade in skillful retreat.

He and Vash circled over and over above the sunken lower level as they dueled with each other, Revan intoxicated by the rush of combat, she resolutely fighting back against his brutal techniques with the patient swings and parries of Jedi lightsabre combat at its purest.

Suddenly, Revan lashed out at Vash with a Force push that shoved her over the edge. She landed gracefully on her feet and beckoned to him. He leaped after her, bringing his red blade down in a brutal stroke intended to cleave her in two. She just barely turned his sabre aside, sending it into a computer terminal and setting the lower level awash with sparks. The bridge crew fled in every direction as Revan pursued Vash, cutting mercilessly.

His lightsabre lanced computers, the surface of the catwalk overhead, and tore grooves in the floor as he relentlessly harried the Jedi Master. He hurled her into the walls with the Force, shot small objects at her, fast wearing down on her endurance.

Smelling Jedi blood, he moved in for the kill.

* * *

Bastila's yellow sabre had neatly cleaved the heads of two Sith when she heard Master Vash cry out in pain. Her heart fluttered when she saw the Jedi Master fall to her knees before Revan.

She could accept the deaths of other Jedi, but not Vash! She couldn't see her die as well.

Screaming, Bastila leaped down to the lower level, putting herself in front of the Dark Lord and unleashing the largest Force blast she could muster. Caught unprepared for her attack, Revan was knocked from his feet by the kinetic energy she threw at him.

"You will not win, Revan!" she cried, trying to squeeze more power into her assault.

Undeterred, like the tenacious predator he surely was, Revan got to his feet again and came at her with his lightsabre.

Desperation flared in Bastila's mind and panic took over. She was suddenly hurling every Force power she could think of at him. Adrenaline pumped through her body when she felt her throat constricting as Revan held a menacing hand toward her, squeezing slowly on her windpipe. Her thoughts racing too fast to be stopped by any amount of reason, Bastila targeted Revan's mind, envisioning with all her might his head exploding.

Something happened.

Revan's hand faltered, he dropped his lightsabre and staggered back, hands reaching for his head as a hissing snarl erupted from behind his mask.

Suddenly, a roar filled Bastila's ears. The bridge was instantly filled with a searing heat as dust, debris, and fire splashed down from above. Bastila screamed and dropped to a crouch as the explosion howled through the bridge.

Metal screeched and howled and a second explosion ripped in from the sides, crushing the catwalk down from above with the force of a crashing starfighter.

* * *

Pain exploding in his head was all he could feel, there was nothing beyond it. He could see nothing, hear nothing but his own scream. He clutched at his head in a vain attempt to alleviate the pain, felt something foreign covering his face. He couldn't figure out how to get it off; his scratching and clawing did not remove it.

He knew only one thing: There was someone standing before him, someone he couldn't see, who had come to kill him.

Instinct screamed at him to get away, but through the pain in his head he could barely remember how his limbs worked, managing only a weak shuffle. He felt himself come up against a wall; there was no way out!

She was here to kill him and he couldn't escape! A terror equal to his pain coursed through him. Primal instinct overrode all reason, the one thought he could hold in his head was of his desperate need to get away. Blind, he felt along the wall behind him. It was bumpy and irregular, sharp in places and smooth and hard in others. But he could tell which way it led, and instantly started following it.

A deafening howl suddenly picked him up and threw him across the small room. He impacted the wall in a glass-shattering, bone-breaking impact. He felt flames licking at the bulky clothing he wore even as it was soaked in his blood. When he tried to curl his head up in his arms, he found he couldn't move his left arm--it was pinned by something sharp and heavy. Before he could free himself, another searing detonation rocked the chamber.

Heavy steel fell on him from above. He screamed in renewed agony as thousands of pounds of debris crushed down around him, ripping his arm off the impaling shrapnel and tearing open a fountaining wound. Snapping under the strain, a blazing hot section of steel beam lanced across his face, splitting the opaque mask like an eggshell and gouging a deep trench in his face running from his forehead to his chin.

A small avalanche of dust and tiny pieces of debris showered him from above as he lay paralyzed by the pain. Blood was running into his eyes, stinging terribly with every blink of his lids. He could barely move any of his limbs; those that weren't pinned by twisted rubble in too much pain to do more than shudder.

He could hear and smell fires nearby, igniting fresh panic in him. He hated fire. He had to get _away_!

Using an unknown strength, he tore himself from the crushing confines of the debris pile, tearing several new wounds along his thighs. He just barely managed to stagger to his feet to take a cursory look at the devastation around him.

There were indeed fires everywhere. They burned sporadically where banks of computers had been gutted by the flying debris. He was standing in a depression in the middle of a fairly large room, an operations center of some sort, and it was filled with debris.

He hissed reflexively at the fires around him, reacting to their heat on his sensitive facial hairs.

As he tried to claw his way to the upper level, drag himself out of the fire pit, he saw two other bodies amidst the fallen shrapnel and broken steel beams. There was more blood, it formed a pool at one of the women's feet where she had curled against a torn piece of steel reinforcement pinning her to the ground by the hip.

Moved by a strange compulsion, he dropped back down to the floor and strove to pull the heavy rubble off the woman. His injured arm stung in protest, spilling blood freely as he strained. When he finally removed the obstacle, he knelt down next to the short woman with the disarrayed brunette hair, inspecting her wounds through blood-drenched eyes. He blinked in an effort to clear his vision as he stared dumbly, trying to comprehend.

The woman's stomach had been slashed by the shrapnel, blood was fountaining everywhere. She had lost consciousness and would be dead in minutes.

Without knowing why, he put his hands to her and almost immediately felt a soothing sensation fill him. Somehow, he knew she was feeling the same. He gaped in amazement as the oozing wound on his arm began closing over and the woman's own mortal wound healed itself.

Suddenly she opened her eyes. Thought flooded into his brain.

She was here to kill him!

He recoiled from her faster than if he'd been struck by lightning, scrambling like a madman to get away. Panic reigned supreme in his mind, every shred of rational thought dissolved beneath the onslaught of primal terror.

He had to escape! She was here to kill him!

* * *

Bastila gasped at the presence she felt inside her mind. She felt a fear that was not her own, but at the same time, felt the pain from her wound lessening. It was almost as if she could reach out and touch the other mind that was intertwining with hers, only to have her hand encounter an invisible wall that separated the panicked, rampant thoughts from her own. It was the mind of a madman, inexplicably linked to her own, and that connection was healing what would surely have been a fatal wound.

She felt blood dripping onto her face, cracked open her eyes. Split down the middle by a gruesome, oozing gash, Revan's face was just inches above hers. His feline eyes widened in sudden shock when he saw her regain consciousness. He leaped away from her prone form, hissing and growling as he abandoned all semblance of dignity and literally crawled over the debris pile to make it to the upper level of the bridge.

For another fleeting moment, Bastila heard things in her mind that were not her own, and like a thunderclap it hit her; it was _his_ mind she heard.

Seeing Revan getting away, Bastila tried to pry herself up to give chase, but the pain in her stomach, though not a mortal wound, brought her up short when she attempted to get to her feet. She saw Master Vash lying under a broken sheet of flooring, struggling to free herself.

Painfully lifting herself to her hands and knees, Bastila started working to pull the rubble off the Jedi Master. Vash wasn't nearly so injured as she had been; only cuts and scrapes and a few serious bruises on her midsection. She coughed from the dust as Bastila cleared the last of the debris from off her.

"Master," Bastila choked, "we failed. I failed. Revan escaped."

Vash gripped her hand. "You did everything you could, Padawan."

Shakily, Master Vash got to her feet. Helping Bastila out of the destroyed lower level, she found and revived several other Jedi survivors who lay scattered about what remained of the bridge. The observation window was intact; they could clearly see the devilish form of Malak's personal cruiser looming, blanketing the beleaguered ship with blistering firepower.

As was the way of the Sith, the apprentice had turned on the master.

But the master was nowhere to be found.

"Come," Vash ordered the battered remnants of her Jedi team, "we should leave."

* * *

He left a trail of blood, torn fabric, and armor behind him as he staggered about the ship, his eyes raking the halls, searching for something. He didn't know what he needed to find, only that he needed to find it _now_. The heavy armor he'd been wearing was slowing him down, as weakened as he was by the pain. Several times he tripped over what seemed to be a long battle skirt, so he tore strips from it and tried to bind up some of his wounds as best he could manage.

Even with strips of the black cloth over his forehead, and across his nose and chin, the gash on his face refused to stop bleeding. The sanguine fluid ran into his eyes, making it hard for him even to see properly.

He was starting to shiver. Somehow, he knew that was a bad thing, that he should not be shivering. He started to wish he hadn't torn off so much of his cumbersome clothing, but he couldn't stop now.

He had to get away!

Suddenly, miraculously, he stumbled into his unknown destination. It was an odd indentation in the wall, perhaps a door of some kind. Indeed, a hatch opened at the touch of his hand, and he fell eagerly into a small compartment; a pod of some sort. He knew there was something else he needed to do, and with great effort he remembered.

With the last of his strength, he shifted his weight to crawl awkwardly into a feeble sitting position, wrapping a latching strap over himself, and with a clenched fist pounded a red button by the hatch. His hand broke the protective glass cover and engaged the airlock, sealing the hatch tightly.

Like being shot out of a cannon, the tiny pod broke free of the ship and hurtled toward the planet below. He didn't know what planet it was, nor the ship he had just escaped. The only thing he knew was he had run from the woman who wanted to kill him.

The pod was just beginning to enter the planet's atmosphere when he lost consciousness.


	2. Damaged

_II. Damaged_

"Do you know why you have been called before this council, Padawan Bastila?" Master Vash spoke, her voice soft but carrying the ring of cold authority.

Bastila was beyond anxiety, she handled herself with stiffly practiced grace and allowed no hesitation on her part. "Yes, Masters. I overstepped my bounds during the mission to capture Revan."

"Not only did you disobey, Padawan," Vrook was now speaking, "your rash actions allowed the Dark Lord to escape. A search of the planet is already underway, but the realistic chances of finding Revan shrink as we speak."

Bastila nodded. "I know," she admitted.

"Anything to say in your defense, have you, Padawan?" asked Master Vandar.

"Esteemed Masters," Bastila began, "I know what I did was foolish, ill-advised, even arrogant. I departed from my Jedi discipline and let passions rule me, and I will accept the consequences of my actions, for they are suitably deserved whatever they may be. I only ask you to understand that I acted to save the life of another Jedi."

Bastila was unable to keep from taking a fleeting glance at Vash at her last statement. Sitting motionless, the Jedi Master avoided looking her in the eye.

"Be that as it may, the life of one Jedi is unimportant when compared to the survival of the Order," Master Kavar declared. "Though your actions may have saved one Jedi, in allowing Revan to escape, the rest of the Order is still in jeopardy."

"Though Malak has now taken control of the Sith forces, Revan loose in the galaxy is still capable of causing untold death and destruction. Until captured, he is a constant danger to anyone he comes into contact with, because the only thing more dangerous than a Sith Lord is one who is unpredictable and fanatically devoted. Revan is both, and is roaming free," Vrook declared, narrowing his eyes at her. "This is the peril you have brought upon the galaxy, Padawan Bastila. For a crime such as this, what would you think appropriate punishment?"

For the first time in the interrogation - and Bastila was surprised it hadn't happened sooner - she felt her knees go weak, her stomach flutter with dread, and she ached to dash from the Council Chamber as fast as she could. Bastila closed her eyes and tried to summon the inner peace that she knew was always there, but it remained frustratingly out of reach.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she answered. "I suppose the only fair punishment would be expulsion from the Order."

Her mind screamed in horror at what she'd said, the terrible possibility of being expelled almost more than she could bear. The Jedi were her life, without them she didn't know how she would go on. There was nothing for her outside the walls of the Jedi Academy or the Jedi Temple.

But for the mistake she'd made, it would only be a fair punishment.

"Indeed it would," Vrook agreed. Bastila suppressed the urge to break out in sobs. He gave her a look that suddenly made her doubtful again, and his next words made her heart leap with unexpected hope. "But that decision has been withheld."

"May I ask, then, what my punishment is to be?" She wondered if she dared to hope.

"These are fragile times for the Jedi Order, and thus the danger of allowing one such as you out of the supervision of the Jedi is too great to justify the loss of your unique contributions to our cause," Kavar solemnly declared. "Were you let loose from the Jedi, how long would it take for Malak to find you and exploit your powers for his own use? This is a risk we Jedi cannot afford, Padawan Bastila."

"I trust in your wisdom, Masters," Bastila said, not really knowing what else she could say. She'd been given a second chance no one else would have.

"Do not think, however, that simply because we cannot expel you means there will be no consequences for your brash actions, Padawan," Vrook sternly reminded her.

"Yes, of course, Masters," Bastila replied, too relieved by her deliverance from banishment to be worried about her actual punishment.

"It is the judgment of this council that you are to be assigned to the effort of finding our errant Jedi, Revan, and bringing him back to the Light." Those words, coming from Master Vash, were like the sweet sound of salvation to Bastila. She didn't care how long it might take or how difficult it would be; to be given the chance to set right what she had done wrong was more than Bastila could ever have hoped for. She would put her every effort into the task.

"Yes, Masters," she responded, bowing in respect. Straightening, she caught the slightest of approving smiles from Vash.

"I am interested to know exactly what it was you did to the Dark Lord, Padawan Bastila." Master Atris spoke for the first time. She had been silent throughout, her only contribution to the proceedings being a cold glare at the disobedient Padawan.

Bastila's mind raced; she couldn't remember! She'd been so reckless and so full of adrenaline that she acted totally without thinking. The Force powers had simply come to her as she threw them at Revan in her desperate attempts to stop him from killing Vash.

Her pulse quickening, Bastila took several deep breaths, drawing forth serenity from within herself, the peace finally coming. Gradually, her mind cleared, and she concentrated on remembering everything, down the tiniest detail. Soon she was reciting to the Masters everything she could remember about the experience. She described as best she could the amalgam of Force powers she'd thrown at Revan, all to none effect until she targeted his mind.

When Bastila was finished, Atris let out a small sigh of comprehension.

"Something to share, have you, Atris?" Vandar asked the pale, white-haired Jedi Archivist.

"I believe it quite possible our lovely Bastila has destroyed Revan's mind," Atris answered simply.

No one in the Council Chamber was prepared for that answer.

"Dear Force..."

* * *

_Three months later..._

He heard voices drifting through the cargo hold, lifted his aching head off his pillowed hands and looked up, blinking uncomfortably at the light that had so suddenly ravaged his night vision. Between the tall stacks of boxes and crates, he could see men descending the rusty staircase that led down into the bowels of the cargo hold filled to capacity.

Rolling over, he clutched the torn fabric of what had once been some kind of cloak closer to himself in an effort to keep as warm as he could and shut out the unwelcome light. He wondered what the fuss was about; the men were jabbering incessantly as they descended the noisy steps, conversing in a guttural language that was at once strangely familiar and completely alien to him. Two men had reached the bottom of the hold and were probing around with a torch when one of them said a few words he could almost understand. He heard the word 'Taris' spoken insistently.

Taris meant something to him, he knew, he just couldn't remember what. With great effort, he recalled that it was the name of a planet, but nothing else came to him; just the squeezing, knifing pain of another headache.

A hiss escaped his mouth as he clutched his temples, trying to banish the pain as if by sheer willpower alone. Everything he did only intensified the pain. He thrashed about on the makeshift sleep rug he'd laid out in the narrow space between two slightly ajar stacks of cargo crates, making an inconvenient amount of noise.

The voices rose in pitch and volume and he knew he'd been discovered. The sudden onset of the headache left him breathless, and helpless to the two burly men - a grease-covered Twi'lek and a rugged Human - who set upon him with infuriated vigor. A flying boot hit the side of his head, accompanied by more shouting and followed by more blows. With his hands and arms he feebly covered his face, protecting the weak scar tissue on a horrific wound that ran from his forehead to his chin, fearing to let it be torn open again.

He could do nothing but take the beating as the two men pummeled him ruthlessly.

When the Twi'lek and Human saw him making no move to fight back, just lie there shaking with pain ever more spasmodically the more they hit him, their voices changed, and the blows became laid hands grabbing him roughly by the shoulders. They casually hauled him upright and started dragging. Blood ran from his mouth and shaggy hair tossed over his face as his head hung limply from his shoulders, he didn't even try to keep to his feet, just let them drag him.

He didn't know how long or how far the two men hauled him, only that eventually he found himself no longer in the cargo freighter on which he'd stowed himself away in his endless flight from phantom pursuers he no longer even remembered. When he found the ship, it's bay doors wide open, beckoning, he didn't care where it took him, only that it was his escape from the one who was coming to kill him. Where the ship had actually taken him, he still didn't care.

The sight of soaring buildings towering high above him, covering everything with their shadows, jolted an unexpected memory, forming a connection he could fathom. It was Taris. Somehow he knew that. Taris. If only he knew what Taris was...

The two men let go of his burning shoulders, let him drop heavily onto the hard duracrete street that represented the beginning of a never-ending system of gloomy alleys, shadowed roads and plazas, and the general twilight of Lower City Taris. How he knew that he had no idea.

"_Tristek! Namenlos huersk ficht geun! Geun, trisek!_" Again, he did not recognize the words themselves, but their meaning was unmistakable: "Be gone!"

One word did resonate in his mind. _Namenlos_. He knew that was a name being attributed to him. It made sense, actually; he was _namenlos_, nameless. That was who he was. The burly Twi'lek had no idea how appropriate his derogatory insult had been.

Namenlos. It was about time he had a name.

After he'd been given a final kick in the back of the head, the two men backed away from Namenlos, satisfied by their eviction of him from their ship. Licking at the blood on his broken lips, he clawed forward with his hands and found a curb, worn smooth from countless feet, and painfully levered himself into a sitting position.

He ached and stung all over from the beating he'd received, but the pain in his head had suddenly faded, leaving him remarkably lucid for the first time in days. Namenlos was pleased with himself for deciding on a name, even if that name was nameless. It somehow made him more of a person to himself, instead of just flesh and never-ending pain.

He had just started to get to his feet when he felt a boot hit him in the back. He fell back to the ground painfully, anger building instead of pain.

"Yeah, this is my street, chump! My street!" More kicks. The voice alone told Namenlos his newest tormentor was Human. "Worthless piece of Bantha poodoo! Cathar scum!"

Enraged, Namenlos snapped. He surged upright, avoiding a kick aimed at his head, and shoved the heavy boot aside, red eyes glaring with hatred at the squat Human standing in front of him. The bully's face twisted into a scowl of disgust and he threw a fist at him. In the blink of an eye, Namenlos skirted out of the way of the plunging knuckles and seized the delinquent's arm. Roaring, he stepped under and around his assailant's shoulder, twisting the arm all the way around until he heard the fulfilling sound of bone popping.

The Human fell to the ground, howling. Namenlos stood over him, panting in fury. A hiss escaped his throat as he bared his teeth at the writhing thug before him. Choking sounds came from the Human and he started desperately clutching at his throat.

Namenlos brushed scraggly hair from his eyes as he stared at Human choking on nothing at his feet. While he was mystified as to what was wrong, he couldn't say he was the least bit sorry.

Suddenly, a fresh wave of nauseating, dizzying pain rolled through his head. Namenlos forgot his would-be attacker and stumbled into the nearest, darkest alley he could find. Small, multi-legged things in the dank place scuttled away from him as he fell heavily against a wall, slowly sliding down into a loose sitting position. The dampness of the alley seeped into his ragged clothes, the stink invaded his nostrils.

For hours he simply sat there, too numbed by the pounding ache in his skull to do more than rest his arms on his knees and stare vacantly at the filthy wall opposite him, until the gloomy alleyway was almost completely subsumed by falling darkness.

Lower City Taris, being the mid- to bottom levels of the enormous, continent-spanning city, plenty dark in full daylight, was tomb-like in the evening and after nightfall, especially the section Namenlos found himself in; a dirty slum behind a fourth-rate private dock. Sewer dwellers and other vagabond city creatures stared at him curiously through the darkness with luminescent eyes as they scurried about on their way. Seeing them clearly through his keen night vision, Namenlos stared back at them, feeling a sense of kinship with the animals.

His headache finally lessened, but he didn't know what, if anything, he should do. He'd escaped from the woman and that was all that mattered to him. She couldn't possibly know where he was; even he had been unsure where he was going when he first stowed aboard the outward-bound cargo ship. He was safe for the time being, at least from the woman.

But he did have troubles on the street, he realized. One could not expect to be left alone in Lower City Taris, as his encounter with the street thug had demonstrated. He would have to find some place he could make shelter, maybe even call home. A sharp pain in his stomach reminded him of how long it had been since he'd eaten anything.

Stretching stiff limbs, Namenlos got to his feet and surveyed his immediate area. The filthy alley offered little more than stink and rot. The pavement was damp with everything from simple condensation to toxic oil and fluids from the nearby dock, trash collected in little heaps randomly spaced along the walls, here and there were scraps of junk metal and broken appliances, some covered in cobwebs and other unidentifiable substances. One thing he did find that would be useful; one half of a tattered, stained, but relatively dry, mud-brown cloak hanging from a broken trellis leaning up against one of the walls. He gave it a few shakes and draped it over his head to wear as a deep hood to cover the dirty hair that grew in wide streaks on his scalp and mostly conceal his battered, scarred visage.

Stepping cautiously back onto the street, Namenlos left the alley in search of a cantina, or anywhere he could be sure he would find scraps. As hungry as he was, anything he could find in their dumpster was likely to satisfy him.

* * *

The container was open.

Namenlos had spent the better part of the night scouring every halfway-inhabitable alleyway and rundown, abandoned lot he could find. It had been a few days since his deposition in the scummy underbelly of the city of Taris, and much of his time had been spent moving around, either avoiding roving thugs or rooting around in trash heaps for what food and clothing he could find. Nights were spent in fitful sleep curled up in the corners of alleys, or even occasionally just a simple gutter. More than once, he'd been woken with hard knuckles or boots to his face, or the sudden onset of one of his headaches.

When a headache seized him, there was nothing he could do but sit or lie where he was and endure the suffocating agony. When and if it relented, he could never go back to his sleep, and so would be on the move again. That was the case this morning, but the discomfort had borne unexpected fruit; he'd stumbled across a long-abandoned storage lot, with a few containers still left. Most had been carted away or stolen by industrious looters, but a few had been so rusted and warped that not even looters were enticed by them.

The decrepit storage container lying invitingly open before him was just what Namenlos needed--as close to a permanent home as he could expect to find. For the first time in his memory, he was almost grateful.

After he'd chased a few city creatures from their cobbled dwellings inside the steel box and swept the worst of the dust and crud from the bare floor, he quickly lay what served as a sleeping rug in one corner. It was merely the conglomeration of a few discarded coats and a mostly-intact cloak laid over them, but it had kept Namenlos warm several nights in a row, and that was all he asked of it. Arranged in a rough circle, it was the most welcoming sight he'd seen in months.

Too tired to do much else, Namenlos hung a string of noise-making metal scraps over the entrance to his sanctuary to warn him of intruders, and snuggled into the rug. Before he fell asleep, he bit a shallow cut in one finger, and in blood drew a long, twisting glyph on the bare steel next to him.

This was his home now.


	3. Painting A Frail Thorn

_III. Painting A Frail Thorn_

Blackness.

It was all-encompassing, wrapped around him like the implacable tentaclear grasp of a sarlacc monster, held him firmly against all his efforts to claw free from its dominion. It was nothing, the complete absence of substance or life, and it terrified him. He was adrift in time and space, trapped in a void where nothing but he existed, endlessly falling through the infinite expanse of an uncreated universe. He wanted to scream in terror but there was no air for him to breathe, no atmosphere to carry sound, and no one would hear him or know he had ever existed.

Thrashing his arms and legs in an automatic, vain attempt to reach out and touch something, anything that might break or slow his fall, he felt nothing but the sheer emptiness of his limitless prison. Even the movements of his limbs were dull and slow, as if he were lying in a watery grave, crushed beneath thousands of feet of liquid darkness.

He wanted to cry but couldn't remember how. Everything had been taken from him; sight, sounds, sensations, and every scrap of individuality in him that made him who he was. Abandoned in this void, he was truly meaningless, merely a fluke of existence and an inconvenience to the universe.

In a blinding instant, there was a searing flash of blistering heat to his back and suddenly feeling returned.

His face and the rest of his body were covered by long folds of thick cloth, he could feel his hot breath against his own face, smell the stink of his unwashed hair. His heart pounded faster than a hurtling swoop bike and his breaths came in short, rapid-fire bursts punctuated by clipped hisses of stress. Desperate for fresh air and light above all else, he thrashed madly at the heavy cloth and was rewarded by the sight of a rusted metal ceiling in murky half-light.

Glassy red eyes moistened with relieved tears and he sat up, taking stock of his strange surroundings. He was entangled in a mass of coats and tattered blankets arranged in a rough circle in one corner of what looked to be an old storage container. Dirty light leaked in from holes in the steel walls that had been covered with light-colored fabric. On the wall directly beside him was a reddish-brown stain that tracked a specific pattern across the metal that intrigued him, almost triggering a recollection. On another wall close to him was a rough rectangle of stained fabric that had once been white, an elaborate design painted on its surface.

Unconsciously, he mouthed the words as he recognized the symbols, not understanding their definition, but their meaning apparent to him nonetheless.

This was his home.

He was pleased with himself for realizing that. It gave him one concrete fact he could grasp and hold onto, gave substance to his existence and helped banish the void that encroached on his mind.

There were a few other things close by. A rugged, worn, but otherwise decent-looking cloak with a full hood hung on an impromptu rack formed from a bent piece of steel on a wall, a battered pair of trousers in a pile with some other unidentified wrappings and shrouds directly beneath it. A small purse containing a meager sum of credit chips was nearer to the sleep rug, lying atop what appeared to be a moth-eaten book.

The book caught his attention. Scooting forward, pushing a long fall of tangled dreadlocks from his face, he gingerly picked up the book and started turning its pages. To his surprise and relief, he found he could understand the characters written in disjointed lines on the yellowed pages. They seemed to be talking to him.

On the first page he read:

_You call yourself Namenlos, this is your home. You may be having trouble remembering much of anything if you have to read this. You have been having headaches for several months, maybe even longer. In the last two months, they have started to make you forget things. You will probably start remembering things again in a few hours._

The introduction was the only thing on the entire first page, for which he was thankful, because it was exactly what he needed to see. Things were starting to make sense for him, tentative cognition coalescing in his mind. He turned over to the next page and saw more handwriting, like entries in a journal, which, he realized, was exactly what this was. It was _his_ journal.

Flipping through the old pages, some with writing that had long ago faded, been written over, erased, faded again, and then written over again, he read about himself, frustrated that most of what he saw in the blocky writing he couldn't remember in his mind. The earliest entry made no mention as to how he had gotten to where he was, the writing often sounding exactly like the way he felt right at the moment.

As he sat and read through the journal, Namenlos started to remember things again. He had indeed been having headaches, the last was the worst one yet. He shuddered at the image of being trapped in total nothingness, felt another flash of sudden pain in his back. The ghost pain worried him, but it was welcome if just to be feeling something, rather than the total absence of sensation from his dream.

His stomach roiled and Namenlos wondered just how long he'd been unconscious from the headache, how long ago his last meager meal had been. He had a few credits, perhaps enough to buy food he could stretch for the next few days if he was careful, so Namenlos decided to get out of his shabby home for a while.

He collected his trousers and a dirty jacket, pulling them over the rags he wore as underclothes. Idly, he glanced in a dirty mirror fragment he'd pulled from the wreckage of a swoop bike on some street, taking stock of himself.

Unexpectedly, he had a vision of blood pouring from the twining gash on his face, could remember the stinging agony. The intensity of it made him turn away, his own countenance repulsive to him.

Before he left the shelter of the dusty old storage container, he threw the large, dark cloak over his shoulders and pulled the hood low over his face, trying his best to hide himself.

As he stepped out into the derelict abandoned lot outside, he felt the shadow of a burning anger crying out against an injustice as nameless as he.

* * *

Wookiees took far too long in the 'fresher, as far as Mission Vao was concerned. Her friend Zaalbar, after ordering a massive plate of unidentifiable food that was currently going cold on the bar beside her, had made for the cantina's refresher. The fourteen-year-old Twi'lek girl sipped on a flat drink while she waited, keeping her eyes peeled for the sight of his towering shoulders sticking out from the crowd.

Javyar's Cantina was in a bit of a lull this evening, not quite as packed as it usually was. But that didn't mean its clientèle was that much more savory than regular nights; by contrast, the nastier lot just stood out more. As Mission had sat waiting, she noticed a few familiar faces enter the establishment, Black Vulkar faces. They qualified as unsavory, and Mission generally avoided them, but thankfully they sat at a table that was far enough from her for comfort. With unease, Mission reminded herself that she didn't recognize all the Vulkars, and they favored this particular cantina, so there might be others around she couldn't see.

In annoyance, Mission banished her paranoia. She knew how to deal with trouble in bars. But she did wish Zaalbar wasn't taking so long in the 'fresher.

Suddenly a commotion caught her ears, Mission heard the sounds of a woman crying, pleading in a tribal language she didn't understand. She groaned to herself, recognizing who it had to be and what was going on.

Sure enough, it was a pair of burly Vulkars - humans both - picking on poor Natacha, an impoverished Cathar woman Mission frequently saw around Javyar's. The Vulkars especially liked beating on her and doing other distasteful things to her, just because they could. No one much cared what happened to Cathar on Taris, even in the Lower City. The Vulkars had free reign.

The two men, obviously drunk and severely spice-high, were dragging the much smaller Cathar by the wrists toward one of the rear exits, laughing at her pathetic pleas and cries in the Cathar Nefirsi tongue. Mission turned back to her drink and wished she wasn't starting to pick up words in that language. She felt terrible for Natacha, and wished she could help her, but there was nothing she could do.

She wished, just for once, that someone would stick up for Cathar woman.

"Stop."

As if in answer to her unspoken desire, that single word, said with a quiet but profound power, froze the blood in Mission's veins. That one command brought the entire cantina to silence as all heads turned toward the one who had spoken.

A hooded figure stood in front of the doorway, blocking the two Vulkar thugs' way. He appeared to be unarmed, but that only made his threatening presence all the more imposing. His face was shadowed, but Mission saw red eyes gleaming beneath the deep hood.

"Let go of her," the stranger ordered the two Vulkars. His voice, low and husky, seemed to carry across the entire cantina. No one made a sound.

The bigger of the two Vulkars, a burly man with greasy blond hair and a crooked nose, scoffed at the stranger. "And if we don't? Just what are you gonna do?"

Silently, the ominous figures of muscled gang members moved to surround the lone man who dared challenge the Black Vulkars. Mission felt a sudden flash of fear for the courageous stranger.

He was not cowed, however.

"Let--her--go!" the man growled, a rasping hiss interwoven through the words. Mission recognized that quality of his voice--matched with the red eyes, that voice marked him as Cathar. Little wonder he was enraged.

The other Vulkar, a wiry redhead with metal studs lining both lips and ringing his ears, chuckled and threw his fist at the stranger. In one fluid motion, the man ducked under the swing, seized the Vulkar's flailing arm, and stepped forward, twisting the arm violently around. Screaming in pain and clutching his shoulder, the Vulkar fell to the floor. His companion let go of Natacha - who didn't hesitate a moment in fleeing the cantina - and lunged for the interfering Cathar man as the rest of the Vulkars dove for him.

The hooded man roared as he sidestepped the big Vulkar's lunge and dug fingers into his eyes. The brute fell screaming and blinded. Two more Vulkars seized him from behind, but to Mission's utter surprise, some invisible force threw them backwards, they hit the wall with bone-shuddering impact. The stranger whirled around to bury an elbow into the throat of another leaping Vulkar before he turned back to the first two, his chest heaving with rage.

Mission watched breathlessly as he lifted out an arm toward the two prone Vulkars, crooking his fingers like deadly talons. He growled, not so much as laying a hand to either of them, and both Vulkars started choking on nothing. What Mission could see of his face was twisted with fury as he screamed in anger, his ire seemingly the only thing afflicting the helpless Vulkars. They clutched desperately at their throats to no avail.

Suddenly, the Cathar was set upon from behind by the others. In force, they pounded him to the floor. Instead of fighting back, he just kept screaming, pain and anger no longer distinguishable. Ruthlessly, remorselessly, the Vulkar thugs beat on him as he lay helpless as the men he had choked to death without even touching them. They were furious at the interferer, furious that someone would dare stand up to them, and determined to make him pay.

Suddenly, a burst of blaster shots in quick succession silenced the roaring mob as cantina security rushed in from all sides, pulling the rioters off their victim. Mission heard orders shouted in eight different languages, and slowly the Vulkars backed away, slunk out of the cantina with proverbial tails tucked between their legs, leaving only the matter of the bodies on the floor.

Both Vulkar thugs were dead, the nameless Cathar in bad shape but still breathing. The security guards didn't care one way or another who was alive or dead, just picked up the bodies and hurled them like refuse out the exit into the rear alley.

In short order, everyone went back to their business, forgetting all about the altercation, despite what a remarkable thing the stranger had done; strike out against the brutal Vulkars. And now he could be dying just outside while everyone went about their business, oblivious to his courage.

Mission felt sick. She knew, instantly, that she had to help the poor man.

Quickly, she rushed out the back. Kneeling down next to the Cathar, she found him still conscious, but just barely. His hood was torn most of the way off, giving her a better look at his bruised, bloodied, scraggly face. Dreadlocks hung in dark bunches from his scalp, and the streaks of his beard were likewise long and twisted. He didn't look to have had his hair trimmed in months. As unkempt as his face was, she could guess that the long streaks of fur on his arms and back were sure to be even worse. If she was any judge of city rot, and she most certainly was, he hadn't bathed in weeks, perhaps months.

The most arresting things about him were his eyes. The whites, milky smooth, made the deep glassy red of the irises surrounding sharply elliptical pupils cutting as a knife. The wild criss-crossing gash of a scar that ran between the eyes from his forehead to his chin gave him even more savage a countenance.

But with his face twisted in pain, agonized tears cutting tracks through the grit and filth on his face, teeth gritted against hissing cries, he looked about as far from threatening as Mission could imagine.

One red eye took notice of her, watched her closely.

Mission put on a friendly face. "Hey there, you look like you could use some help."

Feebly, he tried to push her away. "No, I--" Another spasm of pain wracked his body, and Mission took the collar of his shirt and started dragging him, not sure if she dare try to pick him up for fear of damaging something already injured.

"Come on, now, we ought to at least get you off the street. Wouldn't want to get run over by a swoop bike, now would you?"

The stranger grimaced as she pulled him off the side, up against the outside wall of the cantina. Laboriously, he levered himself into a sitting position and laid his head back against the dirty corrugated steel.

"I saw what you did," Mission said to him. He just stared at her. "You saved Natacha," she clarified. "That was a really great thing you did. She has it hard, and no one ever tries to challenge the Vulkars when they've got what they want. No one really cares." She almost included the words 'about Cathar here,' but she didn't want to anger him needlessly. He was already worrisome enough.

The Cathar nodded wordlessly.

"So what's your name?" Mission asked.

The question panicked him, a mask of fright and confusion spreading across his face in an instant. Mission hastily backtracked.

"Oh, it's okay, you don't have to tell me. I've known a lot of people with their names on the wrong lists." She tried to smile again. "I'm Mission."

"Mission," he mumbled. He repeated the word softly, rolling the syllables off his tongue as if he were grasping at the word like a lifeline. Hopelessness crept over his features.

"I don't know who I am," he said despairingly. "I call myself Namenlos, because I don't have a name. I don't know how I got here, and when the headaches get bad, I can even forget I'm still alive."

Amnesiac. That would certainly explain a lot of things, Mission thought. Eying the rift-like scar on his face, it wasn't hard for her to imagine what had caused that memory loss. She wondered what, if anything, he was running from. It could be anything from a punk with a hydrospanner to an enraged rancor monster, from the looks and size of that scar of his.

"Do you have a place to stay?" Mission asked.

"I--I..." He was obviously struggling to remember. He shut his eyes and hissed in pain. "I might," he said finally. "I think it's--"

"Never mind. You can come stay at my place," Mission offered. "The Beks let me stay in one of their flats, as long as I can keep some of their bikes running. I'm sure Gadon wouldn't mind my putting you up too." She winked at him. "After all, you're no friend of the Vulkars, and in Gadon's book, that makes you his friend."

Surprisingly, he shook his head. "No, I can't bring my troubles on you. I have to--I need--I can't..."

"It's no trouble," Mission responded. "You're a good person; you helped Natacha and that's enough in my book." She started to put her arms under his shoulders, but stopped. "Will this hurt you?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I can take it. Just be careful."

Mission threw his arm around her neck and tried to lift him up off the ground, but was suddenly confronted with just how heavy he actually was. Despite being wiry and thin from malnutrition - something she saw a lot - he was still surprisingly heavy. Cathar physiology, she guessed.

She grunted in effort and eased him back down. "You just stay right here," she told him, "I'll go get Big Z."

"I'll be here," he replied, lying back against the wall.

Mission quickly ran back into the cantina, scanning the crowd for any sign of her Wookiee friend. Instead of seeing Zaalbar's fuzzy brown shoulders and blocky face, all she saw were Bith performers tooting and blaring with their instruments, Rodian junkies snorting spice and split, Twi'lek showgirls on poles, the odd Aqualish bouncer here and there, and literally a sea of other faces and random body parts in dubious states of dress or undress.

Surely he couldn't _still_ be in the 'fresher!

Then, finally, she caught a glimpse of the Wookiee's massive form crouched uncomfortably on one of the bar stools at the far end, gorging himself on the largest plate of Hrakert Blood Shrimp she'd ever seen.

"_But--but Mission, they just brought my food!_" Zaalbar objected in response to her urgings that he come along.

Mission wagged a blue finger at him. "Well, maybe if you hadn't been so long in the 'fresher you could have had your seconds!" she scolded. "Come on, I need your help."

"_What is it?_" he asked.

"Just someone who's going to be in trouble with the Vulkars. He's too heavy for me to carry, I need your big Wookiee muscles this time."

At mention of the Vulkars, Zaalbar stiffened. "_What happened to him?_"

Tugging him along, Mission explained. "Well, the Vulkars were picking on Natacha again. You know how they like to do that." Zaalbar nodded grimly. "Well, this guy" - Mission whistled in amazement at the recollection - "he stood up to 'em, made them let her go. I think he even killed a few of them."The joy in her voice died. "Of course, the other Vulkars made him pay. That's why we need to help him, Big Z. I know he's a good guy."

Zaalbar patted her on the back with an enormous Wookiee hand. "_Maybe he is worth helping, then._"

To Mission's relief, Namenlos was where she'd left him, still looking a bit dazed. She couldn't really blame him after the beating he'd taken. She was surprised by his reaction to seeing her again, though. As soon as he caught sight of them, a panicked hiss escaped his throat and he instantly tried to scramble backwards.

Zaalbar stopped short as the Cathar floundered on injured limbs, and Mission, concerned, bent down to lay a friendly hand on his shoulder.

"No! Let me alone!" Namenlos rasped in fear.

"It's okay, it's okay!" Mission soothed, unsure of the reason for his sudden panic. "I'm Mission, remember me? It's alright, no one's going to hurt you."

"But--but..."

Mission then realized he wasn't reacting to her, he was reacting to Zaalbar. The Wookiee stood a few paces away, looking uncomfortable.

"_I'm sorry, Mission. I might have mentioned this had I known who he was._"

She frowned. "Mention what?"

"_Wookiees and Cathar do not go together. I do not know why, but they are discomforted by us._"

Mission suppressed the urge the whack herself in the head with the palm of her hand. She turned back to the nervous Namenlos.

"Oh, it's alright. Big Z's my friend, he won't hurt you," she assured the Cathar. He was put slightly at ease by her words, but still looked unconvinced. "No, really! In fact, he's probably more scared of you than you are of him. He's a real softie, don't worry."

Slowly, Zaalbar eased down to a knee in front of Namenlos, and though his frame still towered over Mission and the Cathar both, it was less imposing.

"_I am honored to meet one who is no friend of the Black Vulkars,_" Zaalbar said in a low voice directed at Namenlos.

"I can't understand," Namenlos responded, still trying to edge away from the Wookiee.

"Oh, he says he's glad to meet you," Mission told him. "We don't like the Vulkars any more than you do. Big Z's like family, you know? You don't have to worry, okay?"

Reluctantly at first, then gratefully, Namenlos accepted Zaalbar's help. Between Zaalbar's arm and her shoulders, they were able to hoist the wounded Cathar onto his feet.

"Come on, Namenlos," Mission grunted as she took his weight. "Let's get you off the street."

* * *

Carth Onasi's neck itched. His dress uniform was cinched too tight and the abrasive collar was scratching something awful, but he dared not move from his rigid stance where he stood sharply at attention. He'd been waiting close to an hour for the Jedi contingent to arrive, but he was assured it would be any minute now.

With only the boarding ramp to the Republic cruiser_ Endar Spire_ for company, Carth was ready for the huffing Jedi to arrive, even despite what he'd heard from other Republic officers who'd had the misfortune of dealing with this particular party. The last ship the Jedi had "borrowed" limped back into a Republic facility with half of its armor scoured off and several crew members critically injured from a vicious battle with Sith ships. These Jedi, and whatever the frack their mission was, were bad news.

Carth hadn't even been told why his ship was to be taken over by the Jedi. All he'd gotten from the brass was an assurance that this was for a mission of vital importance to the safety of the Republic, as if that was supposed to be enough to satisfy him. Of course, he had no choice but to follow his orders. He was a loyal soldier and would do what his superiors commanded him, but that didn't preclude him from having his suspicions.

Finally, a transport tram arrived from the dock terminal and came to a stop at the platform. Six--seven--eight Jedi emerged, their faces characteristically blank and expressionless. As a single formation behind the one who looked to be their leader, the Jedi approached Carth. The lead woman, a petite brunette-haired girl who looked no older than twenty-one, stopped in front of him and bowed ever so slightly.

Her voice was flat and warmthless. "Bastila Shan, on behalf of the Jedi Council."

Carth got the distinct impression that this woman rated people like him just above insects.

Following protocol, Carth bowed. "Captain Carth Onasi of the _Endar Spire_ at your service, ma'am. May I show you aboard?"

Bastila gave a curt nod of her head. "Please do. We have much to do, Captain, and should get to it."

Carth nodded and gestured toward the boarding ramp. "Yes, ma'am, if you'll follow me."

None of the Jedi said a word while he led them onto the ship, neither were they interested in being shown to their quarters when he offered to give them a chance to settle in while the ship took off. Bastila and her whole escort insisted on coming to the bridge, only willing to disclose their destination once they were in orbit.

The takeoff was elementary and without incident, soon the spread of stars of the rest of the galaxy was before them, and Carth turned to Bastila.

"Destination, ma'am?"

"Taris."

"Taris?" Her answer surprised him. Taris was a quiet front, there had been no action in that region for months, the Sith apparently deciding it wasn't worth bleeding over such a backwater planet when there were bigger fish to fry. Taris was safe territory, what the Jedi could possibly want on Taris was beyond him, and what he wished to find out.

"It is not your concern, Captain," the Jedi responded coldly. "Just bring us there."

Baffled, Carth gave the order, then turned back to Bastila. "I realize Jedi matters are none of my business, but where the potential safety and welfare of my ship and crew are concerned, there are certain things I need to know. Now I know for a fact that there hasn't been a major engagement near Taris in close to five months."

Bastila smiled condescendingly. "Then your mind should be put at ease by these orders, Captain."

Carth smiled back, but it was an empty smile, a mere formality. He was beginning to understand why other officers resented having to deal with Jedi. "Yes, ma'am, but that just doesn't add up. I mean, if it's important enough that I get assigned this mission without being told a thing about it other than it's vitally important to the war effort, why would we being heading into a quiet zone?"

"You have been told what you need to know, Captain," Bastila replied. "Just bring us there and you will receive further instruction."

Frustrated, stonewalled, Carth sat in his chair and watched as the hyperdrive kicked in. The stars stretched and space turned white.


	4. Facade

_IV. Facade_

_"...You are special, child..."_

A racing heart pounded with apprehension in her chest as she tried to calm her rapid breathing. Feeling her own hot breath reflecting off the opaque face mask sent little shivers of panic through her that threatened to overwhelm her. Remembering what she'd been taught, she tried to banish the uneasiness and, most importantly, the fear that came with it.

_"...You have enormous potential, but you must take upon yourself the responsibility such power entails..."_

She felt herself calming down, the sharp hisses of her breath becoming quieter. Everything was dark, her sight totally obscured, but she had made tentative peace with that deprivation. It really mattered not, as long as she controlled how she reacted to it. She had trained for years, this control of herself was far easier than it once had been. She remembered being unable to do more than sit trembling when put in this position, put in a panic by not being able to see, feeling her breath on her face; it strongly reminded her of hiding for her life in whatever cramped, dark space she could find, memories she had no wish to revisit.

_"...The Force, and how it works through you, is your responsibility. You must act always to serve others; this is our highest calling. Take no thought for yourself, only for how you might further the true purpose of the Order and the Force, its tenets of justice..."_

She felt comfortable listening to the voice's instruction, as she had done for many years now. Her master's soft voice gave her direction, instructed her in wisdom, and taught her control. Her body relaxed and her mind cleared.

_"Uphold your responsibility, apprentice."_

Light suddenly struck her eyes as the mask was removed from her face. Her senses filled with garish sights and sounds.

She found herself standing on a filthy sidewalk, transports rushing by under fluorescent orange and dirty neon lights that flooded the enclosed city block. The acrid smell of exhaust and spilled fuel pricked at her nose and the bustling roar of city life pounded relentlessly in her ears.

She heard voices, angry, shouting voices, and nudged her way through the thick crowds sharing the sidewalk with her, trying to find the source of the disturbance, feeling a gnawing ache in the pit of her stomach. Shoving past gawking onlookers, she broke through the gaggle and found the commotion.

The shock of the sight raised a stunned whimper from her throat as she found herself back in her worst nightmare.

There were three men, Exchange muscle all of them, beating down a helpless woman. They yelled at her for money as they kicked her, ruthlessly pummeling her when all she could do was scream in pain.

Tears cut wet tracks down her face as she stood watching, unable to move as she relived the worst day of her life. The Exchange men had kept coming back for more money, kept coming back until her dear mother had nothing left to give them. So they took her instead; beat her and raped her and left her for dead. And she had to watch.

An innocent young girl, forced to watch brutes violate her mother simply for how she'd been born.

The terror hardened to a choking wrath as the horrible moment played out before her once again. She was no longer the helpless girl she had been; she was a Jedi. A lightsabre dangled at her side, the Force was hers to command. She would _not_ allow this to happen!

Her vision narrowed until the only thing she could see was the thug closest to her. She saw that he had an irregular scar on his bald head, a row of piercings in his left ear, and a gang sign tattooed on his neck. She was riveted by his hedonistic grin of pleasure as he gripped her dear mother by the hair, holding her up for the other men to beat with their fists.

Hatred for this callous brute, this destroyer of lives, boiled up inside her. She glared in fury, consumed by her need to defend her mother, her need to give her that vengeance she'd not been given that night many years ago.

Screaming her wrath, screaming her need for this monster's blood, she brought her lightsabre to hand and stabbed him through his shoulder.

Suddenly, everything changed. Her mother, the attackers, her surroundings all disappeared except for the man she'd stabbed. He simply stood where he was, facing her with the oddest of looks. The glowing blue blade in his shoulder seemed not to affect him in the slightest.

Her anger faltered, confusion taking over.

And then, everything melted into clarity once more. The walls of the academy coalesced around her, the warm afternoon sun met her eyes, and she saw clearly, for the first time, what she had truly done.

The person standing before her, impaled on her lightsabre, was Master Quatra.

Horror rampaged through her mind as she stood frozen, rationality quickly evaporating in the face of the onslaught of emotions. She belatedly switched off her lightsabre, but knew the damage had already been done. Quatra slumped to the ground.

"What did you do to me!" she shrieked at the Jedi Master who had been her teacher for years, who she had just killed.

There was horror at what she'd done, but also anger, tremendous anger, that Quatra had brought her back to face a time in her life she wanted only to forget. Once started, it seemed her fury at the Jedi could only grow. She'd been used, her terrible memory exploited, for a teaching she didn't understand.

Quatra was suddenly evil in her eyes. The horror vanished, to be replaced by grim satisfaction.

For all her claims of compassion and care for her, Quatra had returned her into the clutches of her worst nightmares, to the memory she wanted gone and the moment in her life she wish to be free from. Quatra deserved to die.

The sting of the betrayal wrung tears from her eyes.

"I hate you," she whispered to Quatra, who lay silent in death.

She realized she couldn't stay, not at the Academy; the Jedi would arrest her on sight. She'd fallen to the Dark Side. The Jedi would not possibly allow her vengeance on Quatra to go unpunished, they would lock her back into slavery and once again make her that helpless young girl who could do nothing to save her mother or to save herself.

There was nowhere for her to go, but she knew in her heart she could not stay.

Crying from the pain of her master's betrayal, Juhani fled the Jedi Academy.

* * *

"I still think they're searching for something."

Mission rolled her eyes and sighed. "No, I told you, they're rakghouls, they don't think about finding stuff. Flesh-eating zombies like them don't think about stuff like that, just where they're going to get the next snack. They probably just smell something they think is inviting and that's why they're pawing all over that wall."

Namenlos scratched his head. He'd learned to trust Mission's word on things like this, but it definitely looked like the three stooped, slimy mutant creatures were patting down the mud-covered wall, as if they were looking an opening of some kind--the same as he, Mission, and Zaalbar were doing.

The three of them were poking around the Undercity - a pit darker and danker than the worst slums in the Lower City - looking around for new ways to get into the Lower City maintenance tunnels, as some of Mission's favorite places to sneak in had recently been repaired and closed over. In the past few weeks he'd been down to Taris's stinking bilges several times with Mission and her Wookiee friend. He and the teenaged Twi'lek girl and, to a lesser extent, her Wookiee friend, had developed an unusual bond since she'd helped him out after the beating he received at the hands of the Black Vulkars, and he often accompanied them on their frequent city-cruising, especially into uncharted territories as they were doing now.

He hadn't had one of his terrible headaches in almost a month, but being alone, even for a short time, was starting to get terrifying. In such times he would try anything - _anything_ - to keep himself occupied, whether by strenuous physical exercise or drawing in his own blood on a vertical banner he hung above his sleep rug. Putting his mind to a task, no matter how inconsequential, was the only defense he had that helped stave off the encroaching feelings of nothingness he sensed in the fringes of his mind, ready to pounce when he was vulnerable. For now, just being with another breathing, thinking individual was enough for him to anchor himself in reality, and that much he was grateful for.

"Are you sure? Look at what they're doing, how they keep moving down the wall steadily. That's not mob mentality. When you smell something you like, and you really, really want it, you don't sniff in a line and hope you're going the right way. They should be going crazy, swarming all around, if they're interested in something food-like, Mission. But they're not."

Mission frowned as she turned back to look, peering over the ledge on which they stood, observing both the dripping expanse of the Undercity spread out before them and the trio of rakghoul monsters sniffing around the base of the massive buttress opposite the one she, Namenlos, and Zaalbar were perched, examining it for possible ways up into the ceiling of the dank underground and into the network of pipes, conduits, and tunnels running just underneath the Lower City, the no-man's land Mission affectionately called the Maze.

"Huh! What d'you know, I didn't even notice." Mission whistled quietly to herself. "I've never seen rakghouls do that before. I always thought they were just rabid monsters who couldn't think. Maybe not."

Namenlos stared out after them, feeling a strange sense of kinship with the universally despised creatures. "Maybe they're more intelligent than people think, but down here they have to act as they do just to survive. This place is brutal, it certainly wouldn't surprise me."

"I guess you're right," Mission said with a shrug. "Let's keep going, there's nothing here."

The chilly damp air of the Undercity was making the pale scar on Namenlos' face throb and he hugged the dark cloth of his cloak tighter to himself as the three of them edged along what was really no more than an enormous cross-brace in the side of the gigantic support. Stray gusts occasionally whipped coils of hair into his face as he labored not to slip on the sporadic pools of muck and unnamed slime covering the ledge.

He kept glancing back periodically at the odd trio of rakghouls as they moved along the enormous T-brace. Close by was an old access ladder that ran all the way up to the dark ceiling, their destination. Mission wanted to check to see if it would get them into the Maze, but once they came to it, they found it covered in the same slime and muck as was everywhere in the Undercity.

Namenlos eyed the treacherous ladder worriedly. "I don't know about this, Mission."

Ascending up into the darkness, away from the dim light of scattered floodlights that could bring no illumination to the vast expanse of underground space, caked in mud and slime, the ladder was a menacing sight. But even aside from the obvious distaste, something else about the prospect of climbing that ladder made the scratchy hairs on Namenlos' neck stand on end.

The Wookiee said something. By his body language, it appeared to Namenlos that he was agreeing with his assessment.

Mission chuckled. "We do stuff like this all the time. This is nothing."

Namenlos shook his head. "I don't know, something about this..."

Again, the Wookiee spoke. Mission threw her hands up in the air.

"Alright, fine, Big Z! You can go first, if you're gonna be so paranoid!" She turned to him. "Oh, Big Z gets like this sometimes. I keep telling him I can look after myself, but sometimes he gets it in his head that he'd better protect me even when everything's perfectly alright."  
Namenlos shrugged in acceptance, but the strange feeling did not go away. He made himself stop thinking about it.

The Wookiee started up the ladder, and Namenlos was surprised by how sturdily it stood up to the Wookiee's massive weight. Muck squelched on the rungs underfoot, but the ladder stayed solid as a rock. Mission followed him, and Namenlos took to the ladder last, casting a look back at where he'd last seen the three rakghouls. They were nowhere in sight.

Following the side of the massive buttress, the three of them worked their way upwards. Every twenty feet or so they would pass another cross-brace as they got ever closer to the top. To Namenlos' relief, the rungs gradually dried and got cleaner of the muck and filth the farther up they got. Towards the ceiling, it was mostly choking dust kicked up in plumes from where it had caked over the old rungs, disturbed by the Wookiee's enormous frame.

An unusually strong draft broadsided the three hanging on the ladder. Mission coughed as dust blew straight into her face and her foot slipped for a second. She gave a small gasp of surprise but clung onto the ladder with her other three points of grasp. The Wookiee called something down to her.

"Are you alright, Mission?" Namenlos asked, having momentarily stopped climbing while Mission sneezed the dust from her nose.

"I'm fine," she answered. "Keep on going, Big Z, we're almost there."

Seemingly content Mission was ok, the Wookiee continued the last few feet to the top, where there was a small platform and some rusty steel steps leading up into an access shaft. After helping Mission and him up, the Wookiee gave the door a mighty tug and it creaked open, antiquated hinges squealing in protest.

From above, the refreshing smell of dirty oil, steam, and melted insulation rolled over them, a welcome relief from the pervasive stink of bilge and rotting refuse in the Undercity. Whistles and hisses of bare pipes, some leaking their contents onto the steel grate floor or flashing to vapor, filled the dark confines of the tunnel. Naked bulbs hung at irregular intervals, their eerie halos of steam and smoke providing what little light they could.

Stepping into the passageway, Namenlos pushed back his hood and ruffled his tangled dreadlocks with a hand. Mission craned her neck until Namenlos heard the faint sounds of vertebrae creaking and she let out a sigh, staring down the tunnel both ways.

The young Twi'lek snapped her fingers. "Hah! I know where this is!"

Namenlos frowned. "Where is--"

A sudden vicious snarl interrupted him, coming from somewhere close by but out of sight. The animalistic roar echoed off the walls, making determining the source even more difficult as it bounced off hard crete and steel pipes. The Wookiee growled in warning and Mission's hand instantly went to the blaster at her belt. Namenlos dropped to a defensive crouch, drawing a battered but trustworthy knife from its make-do sheath on his forearm. He held it reversed in his hand, teeth bared as he scanned the murky darkness with sensitive eyes. Unfortunately, with all the vapor and smoke everywhere he couldn't see far into the dark.

Their stalker sounded again, a wet smacking noise of hungry jaws eagerly snapping together in anticipation of a meal. Namenlos growled in challenge.

A shape flew across his vision. Acting out of blind instinct, he slashed at the slobbering mass of flesh, teeth, and claws. The body hit him just as his knife made contact, slamming into his chest while the sharp edge of his weapon pierced pallid skin and drew watery blood. Namenlos roared as he crashed to the ground, trying to muscle the disproportionately heavy sack of meat and jutting bones off of him.

Dirty claws lanced his arms and neck, the creature snarled in his ear while he wrestled with it. Mission was yelling for him to get out of the way when the slimy creature unexpectedly bashed his head against a large steel pipe, stunning him for a moment. His knife fell loose in his hand, a retaliatory strike glancing off his attacker's arm.

Namenlos felt the weight of his attacker suddenly lift, looked up to see Zaalbar heft the thrashing rakghoul up by the neck and toss it down the tunnel. The slavering mutant snarled as it hit a light fixture, shattering the bulb in a shower of sparks and casting that section of the tunnel into darker gloom. Mission took a few blind shots down the passageway, but missed the rakghoul with each. Namenlos got to his feet and gripped his knife at the tip between a thumb and forefinger, sighting up the target through the darkness.

Just as the creature began to move, to leap for them once more, he hurled the knife.

Even as the blade whistled through the air and the rakghoul made its move, he knew it would hit the target. Just when the mutant reached the apex of his leap, the point of his knife met its bloated forehead, cracked in right between its inky black eyes.

The blade slammed home, burying itself up to its handle in the rakghoul's head, which gave a last groan and crumpled to the floor.

Namenlos was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when the hairs on the back of his neck bristled again, and he could instantly sense another threat moments away from striking. Before he could warn Mission, Zaalbar, the Wookiee, grabbed them both by the collars and shoved them down.

An instant later, a pressurized pipe exploded, filling the tunnel with white plumes of gas and water vapor.

Crouching low to the steel grate floor, Namenlos held the fabric of his tattered cloak over his face to protect his mouth and nose and keep from breathing too much of the gas. He heard Mission coughing, but couldn't see anything through the clouds of vapor, could do nothing to help her.

He carefully got to his hands and knees and felt along the wall as he went to keep his direction straight. The gas stung his eyes, further obscuring his vision, until he had to go by feeling alone. He thought he heard sounds above the hiss of escaping gas and vapor, a high-pitched squeal, the sounds of rubber on steel, but he didn't know what to make of it.

Finally he felt what he'd been looking for, gripped the rough surface of a large wheel valve at the wall. To his dismay, Namenlos found it was old and rusted, just as was everything else, and refused to budge.

Blinking his eyes in an effort to clear his vision somewhat, Namenlos stood to get more leverage on the valve, planted his feet against the floor and gave a mighty twist. He roared in exertion, every muscle in his body straining to close the valve and shut off the flow of gas into the tunnel.

It still did not move.

His arms burned in protest when the wheel did not give way, blood rushing to his head pounded like a sledgehammer, but he refused to give up. He was almost completely blinded by the gas, not even able to see his hands out in front of him, and starting to have difficulty breathing. He knew if he didn't get the pipes sealed off soon, it would be too late.

Abruptly, the wheel started turning. It spun faster even than his hands could keep up with, locking itself firmly shut against the onrushing flow. The hissing sound came to an instant halt.

Dizzy, coughing on the noxious fumes, Namenlos slumped down against the wall. His head was spinning, he was feeling sick to his stomach, and his legs simply couldn't hold him any more. He sat for a moment catching his breath, trying to steady himself. He could no longer hear anything from Mission or Zaalbar, it was quite possible they'd passed out from the fumes already.

With the pipe no longer venting its gaseous load, the air was thinning, but slowly, and he knew there was more he could do to help it along. Unwilling to test his legs, Namenlos started crawling for the access hatch they'd entered through, but was stopped short when a sharp spike of pain suddenly stabbed into his brain, sending him face first onto the floor. He heaved a mighty cough and blood came out with his vomit, the nausea too much.

He could feel the headache taking him over, reducing him to a meaningless mote of life whose inconvenient existence would be repaid by his suffering.

Buried in the agony, Namenlos started clawing forward. He would not be cowed by the pain inside. Though it punished him, he pushed on, exerting his will over his own body, forcing it to do as he commanded.

There were fews things in his life he could control, but he would be master of himself.

Namenlos retched again, nearly passing out, but finally reached the hatch, threw it open and sucked in a blessed breath of the rancid, stinking, fume-free air. Gratefully, he collapsed at the mouth of the hatchway, feeling the noxious gas dissipating into the reaches of the Undercity. The pain from the headache overcame him then, and he felt himself drifting into that state of half-consciousness where he felt nothing but the emptiness of his mind.

Screaming, he dragged himself upright, refusing to submit to the horrors of that nothingness. Standing awkwardly on his feet, blood rushing to his head, he nearly fell again, but grimly clung to the wall. His head pounded in relentless agony, but he forced himself to endure it.

Namenlos looked around the tunnel, seeing clearly in the darkness. Mission and Zaalbar were nowhere in sight.

* * *

On the bridge with several other Jedi, Bastila stood beside Captain Onasi as they prepared to exit hyperspace at Taris. During the journey she'd had the opportunity to work out her apprehension at having perhaps finally cornered Revan, enough so that she was able to stand without anxiety or fear at what lay ahead, only with sense of her duty yet to be fulfilled.

Ever since the day of her fateful mistake, the Jedi Order had been extending its feelers into galactic society deeper than ever before in its efforts to find the Dark Lord. But in months of hard searching through both covert and conventional means, frustratingly little had been gleaned about Revan's whereabouts. It was almost as if he'd simply dropped out of the galaxy, been killed--as, indeed, the Republic had been led to believe. But Bastila knew better than to dare think such a thing; she'd heard the turmoil raging within him, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd found some way to survive.

Her belief seemed to have been proven correct when, a few days past, one of the Jedi's deep undercover contacts in the Tarisian underground passed along a tip that an unnamed Cathar, possibly a Force user, had upset the balance between the rival swoop gangs. The Council were quick to dispatch her and several other Jedi to the task of investigating this latest, brightest lead. While Bastila was at a loss to explain the months of silence from Revan, Sith Lord, and could only wonder what was spurring him not to strike back against the usurper Malak, she felt a palpable sense of relief that perhaps the end of the road was in sight, that the danger his existence posed to the galaxy might finally be nearing its end.

If she could accomplish this, it would be a small measure of atonement for her mistake, and her fair contribution in the cause of justice.

She stole a sideways glance at Carth Onasi, commander of the ship _Endar Spire_. He was a difficult character, suspicious at her necessary evasion regarding the nature of her mission. It was not his place to know many of the things for which he pressed her, and he seemed to sense that fact, but knowing did not decrease his wariness of her and the other Jedi. Bastila did not fault him for his caution, but still adamantly refused to elaborate beyond the explanation she had already given him.

The galaxy at large simply could not know that Revan still lived. It was for the good of all that she kept this secret from him, that the Jedi would continue keeping it. Feeling sorry that he was not important enough to be privy to this information would accomplish nothing, so Bastila showed only a stony mask of silence and nonfeeling.

Bastila's attention was drawn to the forward windows by the voice of a freckle-faced ensign.

"Captain Onasi, we're dropping out of hyperspace now, sir."

Onasi nodded. "Yes, thank you, ensign."

Bastila lightly grasped the handrail in front of her as the ship lurched in sudden violent deceleration and the familiar sight of the star-studded blackness slammed into view, replacing the blue-white continuum of hyperspace.

Taris, an industrial world that once had been a galactic hub but had since been reduced to backwater status, no longer even contested by the Sith, lay before them a blue-green sphere marred by the sparkling gray swathe of its enormous capital city stretched across the planet's largest continent from shore to shore.

"Captain? We're being hailed, sir."

Onasi turned to the communications officer. "Source?"

"It's the Prime Minister, sir."

He raked his fingers through his hair. "Put him through."

In short order, the glowing blue hologram of Halrand Jynn, Prime Minister of Taris, appeared on the bridge. Captain Onasi bowed respectfully.

"Prime Minister, Captain Carth Onasi of the Republic cruiser _Endar Spire_."

Hynn did not look pleased. "What is your business? There have been no threats from the Sith since last year, your high command assured us the danger to our planet and our city was passed."

"I know that, Mr. Prime Minister," Onasi explained. He lifted an introductory hand toward Bastila. "I present our representative from the Jedi Order, Bastila Shan. I'm afraid we're on a mission of... vital importance to the security of the Republic."

The Prime Minister nodded woodenly. "The city of Taris has always held the highest regards for the Jedi Order. You are of course welcome to whatever services and aid you may require of us."

A nagging feeling pricked at Bastila's mind. Something was not right, but she couldn't place what she felt. "It would be of incalculable aid, Prime Minister, if you would allow us to berth our ship at your space dock."

"Consider it done," Jynn responded, his voice lacking either warmth or cordiality, sheer formality predominant. Bastila's worry grew.

Without so much as an instant's warning, a razor-sharp sword blade erupted through the Prime Minister's chest. He fell lifeless without uttering so much as a gurgle and a menacing figure appeared on the hologram in his place. Attired in gleaming silver armor, he stood casually over the Prime Minister's body as he wiped his bloody sword clean and looked so directly into the transmitter that he seemed to be peering into Bastila's very soul, his expression terrifyingly devoid of emotion.

"At last," the Sith said, "I have you."

At once, a chill colder than anything she'd ever felt before raced down Bastila's spine, while simultaneously she felt the Force screaming in warning.

She didn't hesitate a moment in warning Onasi. "Raise the shields, captain, now!"

He nodded and quickly relayed her command. "And cut that transmission!" he added, glaring back at the Sith's wicked grin.

Hardly a second passed after they raised shields when four Sith cruisers raced in from hyperspace and began firing madly. Carth Onasi began barking out orders faster than she could even follow, and for a moment all she could do was stare in horror at the red curtain of pulsating turbolaser fire bearing down on the lone Republic ship.

The _Endar Spire_ shuddered under the impact of each energy bomb on its shields, and Bastila and several of the other Jedi had to grab handrails to keep from being tossed about the bridge by the ship's violent lurching. Onasi gave immediate orders for return fire and turned back to her.

"Get out!" he ordered.

Despite the circumstances, Bastila was flustered by his presumption. She started to protest "I will remain and aid--"

Another massive hit shook the bridge and alarms sounded, as well as disheartening status reports from the bridge crew.

"We've lost port shields, sir!"

"Incoming boarding craft!"

Captain Onasi winced at the news. "Get off the bridge, get off this ship!" he continued urging her.

Bastila folded her arms. "Captain, if I were to add my Battle Meditation to the efforts of your crew, perhaps there is still a chance--"

Angrily, he shook his head, cut her off. "There's no way that's going to work and you know it! The Sith ships have cut off our escape, they're already getting set to board us, who do you think they want to get? Hmm? Who's important enough that they'd lure us here and spring a trap on us instead of just annihilating us as soon as we dropped out of hyperspace? Answer me that."

Realization dawned on her, then. The Tarisian government must have made a separate peace with the Sith, and had worked in collusion with them to bring her here. It might all have been an elaborate ruse. Malak wanted her powers for himself. He had been frustrated at not having encountered her on a battlefield in months, and sought instead to create his own opportunities to capture her.

The captain was right, it was her responsibility to the Republic to do all she could to escape Malak. The _Endar Spire_ would shortly be overrun with Sith soldiers, Dark Jedi, and as many of Malak's servants as he thought he would need to capture her alive. The battle had been lost before it even started, and for the galaxy's sake - and her own, as well - her primary concern had to be escape. Herself in Malak's hands was potentially more damaging to the Republic than Revan on the loose. It was the only way.

But still, it would feel like an abandonment of everyone aboard.

"Sith boarding parties have landed, captain!"

As Bastila struggled to reconcile her feelings, Onasi decided for her.

"This is Captain Onasi," he spoke into the ship's intercom system. "I'm ordering the immediate evacuation of the _Endar Spire_."

Bastila frowned as she watched him lean over a console. "What are you doing?"

"Setting the _Spire_'s self-destruct." He gave her a meaningful look. "You and your Jedi really need to be gone."

Another blast rocked the ship as Bastila tried to respond. She found she wasn't prepared for such drastic measures. Again, she felt like a traitor that this was all happening because of her.

"Dear Force, are we really to that point? The battle has hardly begun!"

Onasi gestured out the window, at the Sith cruisers looming like firaxa ready to strike at any instant. "This was a complex deception, ma'am. They're obviously banking on seizing the ship with you on board and anyone else they can get their hands on. I'm going to deny them that and give my crew a fighting chance to get out of this alive. We don't let our equipment or our people fall into enemy hands.

"Now get yourself to those escape pods and just pray the Sith haven't occupied the planet yet, or we're all dead."


	5. A Room With No End

_V. A Room With No End_

A rush of blood slammed into his head when Namenlos got to his feet. Yellow and purple spots swam in his vision as the pain twisted inside his brain, nearly taking his feet out from under him again. He staggered forward, draped an arm against the wall and leaned forward to examine the floor for any trace of his two companions.

For the first time he saw what had caused the pressurized pipe to burst; a giant double-sided battle-axe was buried up to its shaft in the pipe. With fuzzy vision, he looked closely at the bluntly square handle, the ungraceful blockiness of its two matching blades. More than anything else, it was the smell, the pungent musky odor emanating from the sweaty grip, that gave him most warning.

Gamorrean.

In an instant, Namenlos' headache vanished.

He blinked his eyes as he crouched down to the floor, where he found more clues. Fresh scuff marks from rubber-soled boots, torn fabric from Mission's gray jacket, slick pools of stinking saliva; they were all telling him where their ambushers had gone.

Namenlos peered down the tunnel, its murky darkness penetrated only by the faint halos cast by sporadic lights in the smoky recesses. It stretched, perfectly straight, for what seemed forever. As he stared unblinking, he couldn't see any indication that it turned anywhere, or an end in sight. The tunnel was interminable, infinite, an inescapable prison. Even the walls seemed to lose their definition, wavering in clouded indistinction, becoming the featureless sides of an endless cage.

His pulse quickened, he drew a sharp breath, inhaling the musty air and the stink of Gamorrean saliva. He blinked his eyes; the vision was gone.

Shuddering at what he'd seen, Namenlos started walking, tracing an invisible trail he could nevertheless follow as easily as if it had been lit with flashing neon signs. He wanted to run, wanted to scream, wanted to do a thousand other things than willingly walk deeper into the tunnel. Words could not describe how terrified he was, but he knew this horror would find him no matter where he went--because it was inside of him.

Mission needed him. She'd come to his aid once, and in return he brought this trouble on her. He _had_ to help her! And more than that, he was alone, and he feared being alone more than anything else.

Namenlos plowed forward into the dark passageway. The walls talked to him with each rhythmic hiss or gurgle running through the pipes, reached out to ensnare him with jutting handles or dangling chains and cords, closed around him in a smothering embrace when the tunnel narrowed. There were no other sounds but the sharp report of his boots on the steel grate floor, the rustle of his clothes, and his soft breathing, the floating clouds of vapor muffling any other noises.

He was able to follow the intangible trail most of the time, only having to stoop to the floor and sniff out the odorous traces of recent Gamorean passage when it became so faint he couldn't tell which direction to take at a divergence of the tunnel. He could even occasionally catch whiffs of Mission's laundry detergent, pointing him in the right direction.

The bite marks from his tussle with the rakghoul earlier were starting to sting and ache, the lethargically bleeding wounds clotting with dried blood that cracked and split with every movement of his body. He dimly noted the pain as he pressed forward.

Namenlos could tell as he followed the trail that he was getting closer. The smells were sharper, evidences fresher as he moved through the interlocking network of passageways, tunnels, and crawlspaces. A scuff mark here, wet blood there, a sweat stain on the wall, they were like arrows pointing the way.

He only noticed when he stood before a closed door into what - from the smell - could only be a sewer that the walls around him seemed to be undulating like liquid. He blinked his eyes but his vision remained blurry, his feet suddenly unsteady, his body swaying in dizziness. Shaking his head, he resolutely pinched his injured shoulder, the shock of the pain giving him a crystalline moment of clarity.

Staggering, he fell against the closed door, put his ear up to its surface as he tried to hold his balance and concentrate. The throbbing of his shoulder was only a distant discomfort in the haze of the overwhelming dizziness that had come over him. He felt watery saliva dripping from his mouth as he leaned heavily against the door. Nausea brought bile up in his throat as his his body twisted and blood pounded in his skull. He saw blood running from his wound in filmy rivulets.

This was no headache of his; he could sense the encroaching nothingness, but it stayed distant from him. No, this was an ailment of a different nature.

Suddenly--a noise. His ears picked up something from beyond the sewer door. Or maybe it wasn't even a sound, but more of a notion he felt in his very bones. He couldn't explain the feeling to himself, but somehow he knew; Mission and Zaalbar were beyond this door.

It was too little too late, as the dizziness and nausea overcame him. He smelled a sharp, acrid odor as he fell to the ground and hacked a dry heave, nothing left in his stomach to vomit. It felt like the tunnel was spinning around him, he looked around at walls and ceilings that shimmered like a mirage, rippled like water. Inexplicable senses told him there were creatures nearby, but trying to move only seemed to make the world's wild lurching ten times worse. His body heaved again, he nearly choked when nothing came out.

Namenlos was dimly aware of a presence above him, a blurry shape crouching over his body. Miraculously, the world stopped spinning long enough for him to take in the sight of a mottled rakghoul considering him almost curiously. The creature cocked its head at him in an odd manner, smacking its jaws lazily as it stared. He stared back into its oval eyes. Neither he nor the creature made a move.

A slow, deliberate noise crawled from the rakghoul's throat. It gestured crudely with a misshapen hand and tugged at him. For all its bestiality, Namenlos was struck by an inexplicable sense of... communication in its movements.

Cautiously, Namenlos put weight on an arm, then a leg, and slowly levered himself upright. The dizziness was passing quickly and he could again hold his own.

He looked down at the stooped rakghoul.

"Thank you," he said.

It merely gave a gurgle, but he thought he could detect some spark of intelligence behind its vocalization.

He turned back to the sewer door and, drawn by an inner urge, raised his hands.

The door blasted open with the force of a thermal detonator. As he dropped to a crouch, Namenlos surveyed the roomed beyond.

There were six startled Gamorreans, two dragging a cuffed and shackled Zaalbar by the legs, one with Mission slung over his shoulders, all heavily-armed. Mission, her mouth gagged with a filthy rag, saw him and immediately began struggling against her captor.

Namenlos snarled and leaped forward, drawing his knife. He was upon the first before his enemies could even bring their giant battle-axes to bear on him, slashed through the throat of one with a lightning-quick movement.

The other five squealed angrily at him and charged, dropping their prisoners. Namenlos was forced to retreat a few steps as he ducked out of the way of swinging axe-blades seeking to cleave his neck. He drove himself forward, into the flank of one of the Gamorreans, toppling the his heavy frame to the floor. As the others tried to surround him, he lashed out with his feet and then his knife, wounding two others. The two remaining, though, finally jumped him.

Namenlos grunted as he felt the breath squeezed from his lungs and he thought he might black out as the weight of his attackers crushed him against the steel floor. His heart pounded, heavy in his chest, the snaking scar on his face throbbed as blood rushed to his head. He could hardly see anything, purple spots consuming his vision.

Above the snorting and squealing of the Gamorreans, Namenlos suddenly heard a slobbering hiss and a shrill cry of rage. The massive weight was finally lifted as the two Gamorreans turned their attention to the new attacker; the rakghoul that had followed Namenlos. It was clinging to the neck of one, taking bites from the alien's face.

Taking a deep breath to sustain himself, Namenlos pushed himself to his feet. He scurried over to Mission and gave the slimy rope on her hands a quick slash. After he'd freed her, he turned back to the other Gamorrean, who was trying in vain to dislodge the sticky rakghoul from his comrade's face. Namenlos stepped up behind him, grabbed his head in both hands, and twisted for all he was worth.

The Gamorrean gave a grunting sigh as his neck snapped and he crumpled to the ground.

Namenlos breathed a sigh of relief as he turned back to help Mission up. He retrieved her blaster and a few of her other things from one of the fallen Gamorrean's belts. Shivering impulsively, she clipped them back on her own belt.

The Wookiee said something, but like always, Namenlos couldn't understand what he was saying. Mission looked at her companion in puzzlement, then stupefied amazement.

"You what?" Her eyes bugged out wider than Namenlos had ever seen as she looked back at him. "Zaalbar says he wants to swear a lifedebt to you for saving us."

Namenlos blinked, unsure how to respond. "What?"

Mission promptly hugged him, wrapped her adolescent arms around him and squeezed. "It's his way of saying thanks." She beamed up at him. "Thanks."

For an instant, Namenlos froze in uncomfortable silence, but after a second warmed enough to tentatively return her hug.

Few things had ever felt as good.

All of a sudden, Mission's eyes snapped open wide and she pushed away, instantly grabbing for her blaster as she tried to shove him out of the way. Dumbfounded, Namenlos gaped at her, for an instant not realizing what she was reacting to.

Still feasting on its kill, his rakghoul companion looked up with a gory smile on its face as it regarded Mission, who was aiming her blaster right for its forehead.

"Mission, don't--!" he screamed, instinctively knowing it was already too late.

The blaster bolt hit right where she was aiming. Blood splashed to the floor.

As Namenlos stared in stricken silence, Mission put her blaster away and sighed in relief. "Whew! That was close! I didn't even realize it was there."

She caught sight of his horrified expression, misunderstanding. "Oh, he almost got you! I'm so sorry, I should have been paying closer attention to everything."

"Mission, did you--" He stopped, choking on the words.

It was just a monster, why did he feel for it so much?

But it had helped him. He didn't know how, or in what way, but help him it did. Rakghouls weren't the brainless zombies everyone thought they were, that much he knew. They seemed wild, unpredictable, vicious, savage--but only because they needed to be. They were just like any other creature put in a hostile and unforgiving environment; they had to find a way to survive.

Just like any other creature--just like him.

A single bitter tear tracked its way down his face as Namenlos thought about all the pieces missing from his life, everything that had been taken from him by forces he could neither fathom nor indeed even remember. He couldn't recall ever feeling so lonely.

* * *

After the frightening encounter with the Gamorreans and having nearly been sold into slavery, Mission decided that was enough adventure for one day and they headed back for familiar ground. Zaalbar was glad to be out of the Maze and made a point of telling her so. Any other day she would have rolled her eyes and said he was paranoid, but today she knew how he felt.

Namenlos' reaction however, had been puzzling. He'd barely even responded to Zaalbar's pledge of a lifedebt, and had in fact gone into a stony silence she'd never seen on him before. She'd seen him in the grip of one of his headaches that he had from time to time, seen the shaking and thrashing and paralyzed gasping, and it always scared her that he might never come out of it. But he hadn't had one in weeks and was acting more alive than ever before. He was enthusiastic about exploring with her and Zaalbar and listened intently to her when she told stories and talked about things she'd been doing for the Hidden Beks.

Mission knew it had to be hard on him not remembering anything about himself, but in the past week or so, he'd been the closest to normal she'd ever seen him since the day he defended Natacha in that cantina. But now he seemed to have sunk back into the same hopeless despair, not saying anything beyond half-hearted, monosyllabic responses to her attempts at conversation, moving with his head hung low between stooped shoulders, almost as if he were trying to hide himself in plain sight.

They reached her Bek-leased flat, just a few blocks down from Gadon Thek's base of gang operations. Mission was relieved, for once, to have left the uncharted territories behind and be back at boring old home, or at least, what served as home.

It was all one room roughly the size of a small two-swoop garage, mostly taken up by her creaky cot, a perma-dirty couch on which Zaalbar slept, a single dresser, and the semi-arranged pile of bedding and pillows lying in the farthest corner from the door where Namenlos slept. The Cathar had hung a stained white rectangular fold of cloth just above, on which he often drew intriguing designs and symbols, either in old hair dye or his own blood. He'd obviously had it for a while, since it was mostly covered.

Various items of apparel lay in places on the floor, most shoved up against pieces of furniture or a wall, having been kicked and knocked around by foot traffic into the lee of the larger objects. Wrappers from cheap take-out food establishments were also littered about the floor, and the smell of spilled hatha berry juice, spilled in some forgotten corner, was redolent in the air.

It wasn't much, but it was certainly better - even having the tiniest 'fresher in the galaxy - than the ancient dumpster Namenlos had been living in.

At the thought of her Cathar friend, Mission slung off her weapon belt and watched him move lethargically through the clutter, shoulders hunched and head down.

Concerned, she nudged his shoulder. "Hey, what's the matter, you okay?" she asked.

Namenlos looked back at her, his eyes resonating with that haunted look she'd thought was gone. After what seemed like an eternity, he answered. "While I was following the Gamorreans, trying to find you, I..." He paused, turned away for a moment before continuing. "Well, I started seeing things."

He shrugged his shoulders and Mission feared he would leave it at that, but after another minute of silence, he went on. "I told you sometimes it feels like I'm not even a part of the universe, like maybe I'm dead and passed into wherever it is we go when we die, and that sometimes I don't even need to be asleep, or have a headache for it to happen; all it takes is being alone."

Mission put a hand on his arm. "Oh, that's terrible, I'm really sorry."

Namenlos shrugged his arm away. "I guess when something like that is a part of you, it's eventually going to catch up with you." He blinked tears from his deep red eyes.

"But I thought you were getting better," Mission blurted, unable to help herself. She immediately regretted it.

Namenlos lay down heavily in his corner, resting the back of a hand on his forehead as he stared up at the ceiling. His dreadlocks fell over everything. "I feel like I'm losing myself more every day, Mission. Like at any moment my life might be snuffed out--" he snapped his fingers for emphasis, "and nothing would even change."

Angrily, his breath hissing past clenched teeth, he balled his fists. "I don't have a life. It was taken from me and I want it back!" he shouted, his voice filled with anguish. "I want it back, I want it back, _I want it back!_" His voice growing more ragged by the moment, he screamed over and over again, arching his body and slamming the back of his head against the floor in increasingly convulsive motions.

Mission's breath caught in her throat as she watched him writhe, his voice no longer coherent. Distressed, she knelt down next to him and tried to still him.

That was when she saw the bite marks.

Three of them, livid against his pale skin, encrusted with overlapping ridges of blood that had dried, cracked, and re-dried several times. There were pinkish streaks where rivulets of watery blood had run down his arm and shoulder blade. Now she understood his convulsions.

Rakghoul.

Namenlos pitched to the side and vomited stomach fluids.

Mission shot to her feet and screamed in horror.

* * *

Bastila wished the world would stop spinning long enough for her to undo her safety harness. It didn't help that every limb, every joint, every bone in her body was in pain from the violent crash-landing and refused to move in an orderly fashion. She could hardly even find the clasp, much less unbuckle it from around herself. Reaching into the Force didn't help; she was so exhausted from the mental strain of attempting to aid the Republic soldiers on board the _Endar Spire_ in fighting off the Sith invaders, even as she fought her way to the escape pods with the rest of her Jedi contingent, that the Force was a distant luxury she could only grope for.

Many of the Jedi had been killed in the fighting aboard the doomed ship, the Sith attacks had been relentless, Dark Jedi everywhere. One or two were left when they reached the escape pods, the others having sacrificed themselves to keep her from being killed or captured. Perhaps a handful of Republic soldiers had survived as well, only those who had made it to the remaining escape pods before the ship's self-destruct sequence obliterated it and took the lives of everyone still aboard, Republic and Sith alike.

Bastila had found herself in the unlikely situation of sharing a pod with none other than Captain Onasi himself. The other Jedi survivors were in a different pod and had already left when she, staying behind until the last possible instant to give the soldiers the best chance of survival she could give them, jumped into the only available pod. If Carth was surprised to see her, he didn't say anything, just hit the release button to send the escape pod shooting toward the planet.

They both felt the shock wave as the _Spire_ exploded behind them.

As the pod entered the atmosphere of Taris, Bastila could immediately sense something was wrong, and Carth began swearing loudly when the whole thing began to spin crazily, like a child's toy dropped down a long flight of stairs. Its recovery system must have failed to properly deploy, because when the pod impacted the surface, Bastila could not only hear, but feel in her bones, it punching through the street and hurtling another several hundred feet into one of the lower levels of the city.

Her body throbbed and ached from being tossed by the wild spinning and smashed against her restraints by the crash. Only once her dizziness had subsided was she able to thumb open her harness buckle and crawl, stiff-limbed, from the pod. She extended a hand back inside to help Carth out and then sat back against the pod's cylindrical frame to catch her breath.

Carth fell down beside her as she stared out into what was literally an urban jungle. Above them, in the pod's entry path, twisted beams and sheets of metal were bent inward like water frozen at the apex of a splash, shattered crete support structures dropped dust and debris down, and runoff moisture from a recent rainstorm dripped sporadically while sparking cables hung like trailing vines. Ahead, the interior of Lower City Taris stretched out before them, lit ineffectually by poorly maintained street lamps, leaving the whole place in a gloomy half-light.

The streets were lined with shops, offices, and other establishments, and pedestrians were already beginning to form a curious crowd at a safe distance from the crash site. Bastila noted that the locals were a cautious lot, openly gawking but staying well clear, as if they expected something to come lurching out of the debris pile and attack them.

Or because they feared the consequences of being unfortunate enough to get in the way of hired muscle. Out of the corner of her eye, Bastila caught sight of a particularly large man with several companions, heavily-armed all of them, and stalking intently through the gathering throng, occasionally jabbing at individuals with their rifles and swords to clear their path.

"Carth..." she warned, starting to get to her feet.

"Yeah, I see them," he returned, ducking behind the ruined pod. "We'd better get out of here but fast."

"I agree." Bastila shot a hand to her belt, checking for the two most important items. In sudden shock, she realized her lightsabre was absent. While the other object was still where it belonged - its smooth leathery surface comforting to feel beneath her hand - the accompanying pressure of the double-hilted lightsabre was no longer there.

It must have been jarred loose during the crash. That had to be it.

Bastila started going back into the pod, but Carth tugged her away, into the shadows. Irritated, she wriggled her arm free from his grasp. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

Carth frowned at her. "What am I doing!" He gritted his teeth. "What are you doing? You see those mercenaries, if we're lucky they haven't seen us yet. We need to be gone!"

Bastila forced patience over herself. "My lightsabre is missing, it must still be inside the pod. I must retrieve it." Again, she started to climb for the hatch, but again he pulled her back and further into the murky realms of the city.

"It's too late to go back, and you know it!" he shouted in nevertheless a low voice, still pulling at her. "The last thing we need is to get turned over to the Sith by a bunch of cutthroat mercenaries, which is exactly what's gonna happen if you expose us both by going back to that pod."

Bastila breathed a frustrated sigh. "I am hardly defenseless."

Carth made a face. "Yeah, well neither am I, but I don't fancy taking on a mob, do you?"

She looked back at the assembled crowd, at the muscular men even now pushing their way ever closer to the pod and being able to see them clearly. She had to admit the Republic man had a point. But to lose her lightsabre, especially in so ignominious a manner... What would the Council think of such a blunder, after her colossal failure in the Revan mission no less?

A sudden thought of fresh hope bloomed in her mind. Perhaps there was yet a chance for her to redeem herself in their eyes--and her own. And Carth was right; she couldn't go back now. The group of mercenaries were about to make it to the pod.

Bastila turned with Carth and pushed deeper into the tangle of frayed cables and cheap plastic sheeting that had formed a liquid-like wall between the crash site and the other side of the street. More crowds waited on the other side, but no one made a move for them as she and Carth moved quickly along the sidewalks and through some alleys, randomizing their trajectory so as to make following them difficult for anyone who thought to do so.

She didn't know just how far the Sith corruption of Taris had gone, but she had no intention of finding out the hard way which of the onlookers had been spies ready to give her up to Malak and his minions.

Once Bastila judged she and Carth were far enough away from the crash site that they weren't obvious as being fugitives running from phantom pursuers, she relaxed her gait and, in a low voice, urged Carth to do the same. He had some trouble loosening his half-jog into a more natural walk, but after a minute or two they looked like nothing but just a pair of city dwellers casually strolling the streets.

Bastila immediately began taking careful note of anything that might tell her exactly where in the Lower City they were, so she could plan where they needed to go. She fully intended to go forward with the original mission. The initial signs were encouraging; they seemed to be closer to her objective than she could even have hoped, certainly no more than a few hours in public transportation. Though, she ruefully admitted to herself, she was going to have to somehow disguise herself. She had already drawn too much attention with her attire.

Carth seemed to have other ideas, though. "We should probably find an abandoned apartment somewhere, or something, where we can rest up and plan our next move. There had to be other survivors."

"Other survivors are not our concern, Carth," Bastila responded, keeping her voice low to prevent it carrying to unfriendly ears.

"Of course they are," Carth countered, clearly unhappy with her response. "They're our people, you'd better believe they're our concern."

"If others survived the attack, as unpleasant as this may seem, they are on their own. We cannot risk the effort of attempting to locate them, not with the threat of Sith spies everywhere. You saw what we all did, the Tarisian government has given in to the Sith, made a separate peace. You can be sure there will be Sith somewhere on this planet, they may even be occupying as we speak."

"And what about your fellow Jedi, you just gonna let them fend for themselves?" Carth asked, folding his arms and scowling as he walked.

Bastila sighed in genuine regret. "They all knew the importance of my mission, and were prepared to sacrifice themselves that I might survive. Many of them did, as did your own soldiers. In return for their sacrifice, I must complete my mission. It has not changed simply because of the Sith attack."

"And what about the Sith trap? What makes you think your whole reason for being here isn't just another part of the ruse?"

Bastila hadn't considered that possibility to herself. It was indeed frightening to think that the Sith could have infiltrated that far into the Jedi intelligence structure. But she had nothing else to go on--she had to follow up this lead, whether it proved to be true or false. She felt like she was closer to finding Revan than she had ever been since his initial escape, and feared to let him slip through her fingers yet again, for if he escaped once more, there might be no second chance. When she next heard of Revan, it could be some horrid new calamity that brought her word of his presence. Too many lives were at stake for her fail.

"No," she said after a moment of consideration, "our source is a trusted confidant. He would never give in to the Sith."

"Oh, really? They do say the Force can do terrible things to a mind; it can wipe away your memories, destroy your very identity."

Bastila's heart lurched. He couldn't possibly know!

No, of course not, he was simply testing her. She waved a hand, dismissing such notions as foolishness, covering her very real alarm at how close to truth his blind guess had come. "I'm afraid you've been listening to too much barracks gossip, Captain Onasi. Such a statement about the Force reveals only an ignorance of its true workings."

Carth tossed a random scrap of metal he'd been fidgeting with into a nearby sewer. "Fine, whatever. I just don't think this is a good idea, rushing off on the word of a questionable source--"

"I told you, the source is quite reliable. He has been with the Jedi Order for many years. In fact, it is a matter of some controversy as to why he has not accepted formal induction and training." Bastila told him more than she had originally planned, but all things considered, the situation had changed.

"So just why are we abandoning our people and jaunting off into the unknown? Why are we braving what could very well be just another Sith trap?"

"You needn't know the nature of my mission, Carth. In fact, the less you know, the better it is for you," Bastila responded.

"Look, Bastila, I'm in this as deep as you. I think I deserve to know what I'm risking my neck for."

Bastila sighed. The man had a point. "Very well, I suppose. Perhaps I can tell you some, but understand that there are some things I simply cannot tell you, as much for your own safety as my own."

Carth shrugged, apparently deciding to take what he could get. "I'd like to hear it."

Rather than telling him straightaway, Bastila angled them both into a quiet alley, away from the rest of the civilian foot traffic and the buzzing transports whizzing by on the streets. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of the stinking bilge and refuse caked up against the walls.

When she was satisfied they were sufficiently out of earshot of anyone who might be listening, she began. "There is a great burden on all Jedi, Carth. The weight of the responsibility of wielding the Force, not to mention the great temptations of the Dark Side; it is not so trivial a matter as a non-sensitive such as yourself might assume."

Carth bristled. "I didn't--"

Bastila held up her hand for silence, sending a small frown of displeasure at being interrupted his way. The frown partially covered her anxiety at crafting this lie she was about to give to him. "As you could expect, this puts enormous pressure on each and every one of us, both to uphold the mandates of the Code - our own selfish desires notwithstanding - and resisting the ever-seductive call of the Dark Side."

"What does this have to do with why we're here?"

"I am getting to that, Carth. Now please do not interrupt me again, or I may tell you nothing," Bastila snapped, perhaps a bit too harshly. She would have regretted her quick tongue, but at the moment she was just glad that he had at least the sense to shut his mouth and let her talk. "Anyway, not everyone is mentally capable of dealing with such strain when already serving in the equally demanding task of command. Burden compounds burden. The Masters, in their wisdom, make every effort only to assign those truly able to such demanding positions, and to make sure that those with a limited ability to contribute can still serve to the best of their abilities, without placing unfair burdens on them. Regardless, sometimes it is impossible even for the wisdom of the Masters to discern if one placed in great authority is able to withstand the pressures of the post. For those individuals, it is only inevitable that they will eventually suffer a complete loss of rational thought, and their minds disintegrate under the pressure.

"Close to a year ago, just such an unfortunate incident occurred. A promising young Jedi in a position of high authority succumbed to the pressures of his post and lost his senses, his very grasp on reality. In his fevered and delusional state, this Jedi did not recognize the efforts of his friends and fellow Jedi to help him, and by virtue of his unprecedented command of the Force, he actually managed to escape Jedi custody and flee to a nearby system.

"Can you imagine the prospect of allowing yet another such prodigy fall into Malak's grasp? He has been loose in the galaxy for almost a year now, and despite having miraculously avoided Malak's notice, the Republic surely cannot continue to rely on such good fortune. This rogue Jedi must be found and brought back into our custody, as much for his own good as for the sake of a galaxy that is next to helpless against such power.

"Several days ago, a friend of the Order's contacted the Jedi Temple on Coruscant with information that may have traced this fugitive Jedi here, to Taris. I intend to see if this lead has any merit, for there is too much at stake for me not to."

Carth heaved a long sigh. "Well then, if it's Jedi business, I guess we'd better get to it."

"Thank you for your understanding, Carth," Bastila acknowledged.

"Who's this contact of yours, anyway?"

"You will know soon enough, Carth, I'd rather not name names just yet. Suffice it to say, he is in a position to know much of what goes on in the Lower City. He has people riding nearly every street."


	6. Nadir

_VI. Nadir_

Carth nervously checked his blasters as they advanced steadily, covertly along the street in a particularly nasty section of Lower City Taris, where Bastila had brought the two of them in her search for the supposed Jedi contact in the Taris underworld.

Along the way, to disguise themselves from any potential Sith spies and other unfriendly eyes, Carth had purchased some additional clothes for himself and his Jedi companion. Now, instead of a clean, crisp Republic officer's uniform that stood out among the ramshackle and derelict surroundings of the Lower City like a shining jewel in a Dagobaan mud pit, he was wearing a pre-scuffed orange jacket and passable gray trousers. It had taken some matter of persuasion to convince Bastila to don the light armor he'd acquired through a black market vendor to cover her Jedi garb, but was eventually able to get her to see the light and agree.

No amount of persuasion, however, would wring any more information from her concerning her ever-elusive mission and the enigmatic Jedi fugitive she claimed to be pursuing, nor her unnamed contact whom she was asking him to blindly trust. None of his questions could elicit anything other than what she'd already said, or more often than not, a terse command not to intrude on matters that were not his concern.

He wanted to remind her of all the Republic personnel who had died on the _Endar Spire_, wanted to remind her of his own duties to ensure her safety and prevent her capture, wanted to tell her what he thought of her decision to leave the rest of the survivors on their own. He wanted to yell at her that she was disrespecting everyone who had fought and died on behalf of the Jedi, but found it easier and far more bearable to simply let her do what she would, knowing the kinds of arguments she would throw back at him.

"So how much further?" he asked over his shoulder to Bastila who crouched behind him in the shadows.

"Not far," she answered. "I've only been here once before, several years ago during training, but I'm reasonably sure it is only a little bit further down this street."

Carth grumbled to himself and stifled a curse at a sudden noise, drawing his blasters. He and Bastila froze as a band of armed pedestrians rushed past them, an assortment of Twi'leks, Rodians, humans, and even a Quarren. If they even noticed the two of them, they paid them little attention as they sprinted down the street, towards another group who had assembled in the middle of an intersection.

When the two groups met, there was an eruption of gunfire and a clashing of swords as both parties viciously attacked each other. Bodies fell from blaster shots while others engaged in fierce duels, shouting and cursing in several different languages, none that Carth could understand.

He knew better than to get in the way, and veered off the main street to avoid the altercation. It was the third they'd come across already.

Carth muttered a curse of his own under his breath. "What is it with these people?"

"Gangs," Bastila answered in a low voice. "Taris' Lower City has always had a problem with swoop gangs. They are violent, dangerous groups of people who band together for no other purpose than to contest other gangs. Some of them deal in many different kinds of illegal merchandise; drugs, spice, slavery, extortion. The Republic and the Jedi have long worked to bring such gangs down, but with the recent wars, efforts have been focused elsewhere. I would suspect there is something of a war going on between two or possibly more gangs, and these skirmishes are symptomatic of the larger conflict. We'd best avoid them whenever we can."

"Yeah," Carth replied, "that was going to be my general plan."

Once the sound of gunfire had faded behind them, they started back on the main road, and came shortly to a large building that looked fortified enough to withstand a frontal assault from the entire Republic 8th Army. It was several stories high, reaching up to the very roof of the Lower City, blaster turrets in windows shielded with deflector plates of hardened durasteel that would turn away all but the heaviest of arms fire with practically no damage. A few of them were manned by diligent guards. The entire front of the building was clad in tough steel-reinforced crete which bore scars from a multitude of weapons. There was one entrance, casually guarded by a single dark-skinned human woman who appeared quite confident in the turret gunners above her to stop any potential threats.

Bastila started straight for the entrance. Panicking, Carth grabbed her arm and tried to pull her back.

"What are you doing!"

Bastila glared at him. "Let go of my arm, Carth. I know what I'm doing."

"Are you crazy? That place looks strong enough to survive a full-scale siege. You don't just come across these places randomly; I guarantee there are people in there we don't want to mess with."

"We're being hunted, Carth, and these people have no more love for the Sith than do we. Perhaps less. They will not attack us if we present no threat to them. Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"You said that already. And I don't trust anyone."

"You will have to trust me, Carth. They already see us."

Carth closed his eyes in defeat. He let out a loud sigh. "Fine, I've got your back, then."

A satisfied smile spreading across her face, Bastila turned back toward the imposing, fortified base ahead of them, making a line straight for the woman at the door. Carth could feel the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as he saw the turrets tracking them across the street.

The woman at the door, dressed in a suit of medium-grade armor and heavily armed with blasters and what looked to be a cortosis-strengthened sword for close combat, locked them both in an iron gaze from the moment she noticed them coming her way.

"Stop right there!" she ordered as Bastila came within earshot. Carth froze and Bastila came to an easy halt. "State your business."

In a calm, firm voice, Bastila called out. "The Jedi Order has always held great respect for the Hidden Beks."

"So you're a Jedi then? And I suppose I'm just supposed to let you in for that alone?" The woman did not sound convinced. Carth fingered his blasters, wondering how many shots he could get before being splattered by the turrets.

Bastila paused for a moment, looking ahead at the guard who was cautiously approaching them with her heavy rifle out in front of her. She squinted her eyes a moment. "Darin?"

The guard halted, a suspicious frown on her dark face. "Yes, I'm Darin. Are--are you Bastila?" Bastila nodded. "I thought I recognized you." Darin put her gun down. "You're right, you Jedi have always left us to our business. It's like Gadon always said; Beks have better things to do than cross the Jedi, we leave that to the Vulkars. I trust they're still keeping you more than busy? No, no, of course not, you have your war to worry about."

"Yes, I regret that the Order hasn't been able to keep a tighter hand on the other gangs recently. But I'm sure the Beks are still more than competent and capable of keeping themselves," Bastila responded.

"What's your business?" Darin asked again.

"I'm afraid I must speak with Gadon Thek immediately."

"Ah, yes." Darin nodded. "Gadon told me I should be expecting some of you Jedi soon. I didn't expect to see you again, though. But my, haven't you grown?" Darin put a hand down nearly to the level of her waist. "You were only this tall when--"

"Please, Darin?" Bastila interrupted. "It's urgent." Carth thought he could see her face go just the slightest bit red.

Darin waved her hand. "Yes, of course, come in, come in."

As she ushered them inside, Carth took note of everything he saw, in case, despite Bastila's trust, they ended up having to fight their way out. What he saw backed up his original assessment of the place. It was a fortress.

There was no other way to describe the complex. Just beyond the outer layer of defenses, inside the structure itself, were rings of automated turrets that looked primed and ready to shoot at anything that came within striking distance. No doubt they were controlled by a complicated passcode system to prevent friendly fire, as Darin didn't seem to think of the deadly threat while she led them past, not even a casual warning to stay clear.

Beyond the turrets, inside another layer of protective shielding, the building's occupants were no less a threat. Hulking, muscular Twi'lek and human men, as well as wiry and no less imposing women, Quarren and Rodians among them--even an Ithorian could be seen here and there. All were not only tough, lean, weathered individuals, but heavily armed as well, and with better grade armor than most Republic soldiers ever saw.

It was clear to Carth that the Hidden Beks were a crowd one did not want to cross under any circumstances. Yet, even for their fearsome appearance and gruff demeanor, they did not seem to him like unintelligent or degenerate individuals. They were studied, calm, consummate professionals in their craft, but not brutes.

Darin led them through a few short halls that fed into a main atrium, bustling with people going this way and that on various tasks and errands.

She pointed to a pair of doors at one end. "You'll find Gadon in his offices. Depending on what sort of mood she's in, you might have convince Zaerdra to let you see him."

"Thank you for your help, Darin," Bastila said graciously.

Darin shrugged. "Don't mind me. The entrance ain't gonna guard itself, so I've got to get back there to make sure none of the rookies wander off looking for hookers while I'm away."

Carth noticed Bastila's face again turn a slight shade of red at the Bek's last remark as she started to make her way toward the office Darin had pointed out to them. She stepped boldly up to the door and pulled the handle.

"Stop right there! Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Carth jumped at the snappy voice that had spoken. Its source was a pale-hued Twi'lek woman who had been leaning against a wall as Bastila opened the door, but was now facing them with squared shoulders and a glare that Carth expected could melt starship hull. She scowled at him and Bastila both for their intrusion and it was obvious she regarded them as she would anyone else unexpected; as a threat.

Before he or Bastila could speak to answer either of her questions, an older dark-skinned man with totally silver eyes who sat at a desk at the end of the room, looking over papers, raised his voice in rebuke.

"Calm down, Zaerdra. Darin and the gate crew wouldn't have let them in if she thought they were Vulkars or Sith."

The Twi'lek, Zaerdra, rolled her eyes at him. "Even the best of guards can be fooled, Gadon. I've warned you of that before."

"Nevertheless," Gadon said, "you may let them enter. In the middle of our base, surrounded by hundreds of Beks, I hardly think two people can present much of a threat."

Zaerdra fixed Carth and Bastila with another fierce glower, then sighed in defeat. "As you wish," she directed to Gadon without taking her attention off her visitors. She smiled coldly. "You can speak to Gadon if you want, but I'm watching you."

Carth pitied anyone who made the mistake of making this woman angry.

Edging closer to the man's desk, Bastila cleared her throat. Gadon Thek finally looked up. "Yes, what is it?"

"My name is Bastila Shan," she started. "I know you have been in contact with the Jedi Order, that you have been feeding them information on the Taris underground for years."

"That's ridiculous!" Zaerdra scowled icily at Bastila. "Vulkar lies to incite the Sith, nothing more."

This time, it was Bastila's turn to smile. "I'm afraid it's quite true. As a Jedi Padawan, and paramount to the Republic's war effort, I was privy to some of the information he's provided."

Zaerdra glanced at Gadon. Her eyes narrowed. "Is this true, Gadon?"

Gadon breathed a sigh and put fingers to his temples. "Yes, Zaerdra, it is."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I needed you to stay suspicious of everyone. Knowing I was an informant for the Jedi Order would only have injected doubt into your resolve."

Zaerdra seemed to wilt under Gadon's lecture. "Then you knew they were coming?"

"Yes." Gadon gave her a stern look that seemed intended to say he would hear no more protests from Zaerdra. With an amiable expression on his face, he turned his attention back to Bastila. "So the Jedi finally sent their errand girl? Good, good, it's about time."

"Please," Bastila said, "if you know something..."

Gadon waved a hand. "Of course I do, I wouldn't be the leader of a swoop gang of the Beks' importance if I wasn't well-informed.

"It came to my attention several weeks back. The Vulkars weren't behaving as radically as they are now, for the most part they were content to keep to their territory. But then, a few weeks ago, they started wandering onto our ground, attacking Beks on the street and killing anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way. Now, gang wars like this are common enough in the Lower City, but there is always a root problem at their heart, some first incident that escalates into full-scale conflict."

Carth raised his eyebrow. "Jedi-speak?"

Gadon nodded. "Something similar, I suppose. But it's different in that it actually has a real-world application, in this case, gang wars. That's the only way you can apply teachings like this, by trying them against reality. Reality is the testing ground for teachings, and it is what more often than not can break them. But here I go off on a tangent. The source, I discovered, through several layers of maneuvering you needn't be aware of, was an incident one night at a cantina."

Bastila and Carth both leaned closer, listening to Gadon's story. "You see, the Vulkars are and always were a violent gang, even among Taris swoop gangs, but they generally keep to themselves as long no one tried to interfere with what they were doing. To that end, there are certain cantinas and other establishments they frequent and have almost free-reign to do whatever they please. The owners can't do anything about it under the threat of Vulkar violence.

"So this one night, a few of their more rowdy individuals decided they needed a diversion, other than their usual swilling until they drop. They singled out a homeless Cathar woman but a man stopped them. This other man was Cathar.

"Now the Vulkars don't take kindly to anyone who interferes with them, like I told you. And after beating this man senseless, they got it in their heads that he must have been a Bek sympathizer, or perhaps he was even one of us, since afterwards I let one of our people put him up in a nearby flat I lease. That was what started this gang war, but that is not why I contacted the Jedi on Coruscant."

"Why did you?" Bastila asked.

"I did because Mission Vao, the young Twi'lek girl who helped take care of this Cathar man, says he used the Force. There are no other Jedi on Taris I know of, besides the ones who came with the Sith more recently. And from communiques I've been receiving over the past year, I've been apprised that a hunt for a renegade Cathar Jedi is underway. This seemed like a solid lead, so I had to report it."

"Where is this Cathar now?" Bastila asked breathlessly.

"He's with Mission and her Wookiee friend Zaalbar. They're usually exploring in the Undercity, but you might find them at the apartment."

"Where?"

"Just down the--"

Suddenly, Carth's and everyone else's attention was drawn by the sounds of someone in distress approaching from the hall. Looking back, he saw it was young blue Twi'lek girl, crying, running toward the office as if she were grasping for a lifeline.

* * *

Zaerdra caught the girl in her strong arms as she rushed into the office, enfolding her in an embrace that seemed almost motherly. She calmly held the girl as she cried and struggled, soothing her. "Mission, dear, what's wrong? Where's Big Z? Are you alright?"

Mission tried to speak, but the tears overtook her words, and all that came out was a terrified sob.

Zaerdra looked apologetically at Gadon, who gave her a sad smile. "I don't know what could be wrong with her." Gently, she shook Mission by the shoulders. "Mission, it's alright, I'm here. Tell me what's wrong."

"He's sick!" she wailed.

"Who's sick? Talk to me, Mission!"

"Namenlos!"

Bastila's ears perked; she recognized the word that the girl had just used as a name. Though it appeared in several languages throughout the galaxy, what mattered to her was that it was primarily a member of the _Nefirsi_ tongue, one of several tribal Cathar languages. Her breath quickened with the adrenaline rush of possibility.

She glance at Gadon, who nodded in confirmation.

"Mission Vao," she said, touching the girl with a tiny trickling of Force energy to help calm her, "my name is Bastila, I am a Jedi, I believe I can help Namenlos."

Calmed down somewhat, Mission pulled away from Zaerdra, albeit reluctantly. "Really?" she sniffled. "I didn't think anyone--"

"Yes," Carth reinforced, picking up on Bastila's plan. "We're here to help. Gadon here told us all about him, it's why we're here in the first place."

"I am confident I can help him, Mission Vao. I have spent my whole life training to help people."

Despite her tears, which still flowed freely down her face, Mission brightened. "I really hope so."

"Can you take us to him?" Carth asked.

Mission bobbed her head. "Big Z's staying with him. It's just a few blocks down. Come on, we gotta hurry!"

Gadon Thek nodded. "I guess you'd better go, sounds like real trouble to me."

Mission grasped Bastila's hand and started urgently leading her back out of the building. Carth had to jog to keep up with her and the Twi'lek girl as she navigated the shifting groups of people who filled the main area, then to dash through the halls, and finally out onto the street.

Running as fast as her legs would carry her, Mission led Bastila and Carth several blocks up the street in the opposite direction than they'd approached, deeper into what Bastila assumed must be Hidden Bek territory. When she reached the building she sought, she didn't stop so much as redirect her forward momentum, and tore into the place at almost the same speed she was already careening down the sidewalk.

Bastila rushed to catch up with her. Having longer legs than her, Carth didn't have as much trouble keeping up with Mission, but he was still fairly winded. Bastila, on the other hand, was exhausted from the sprint and gasped huge gulps of air as she negotiated her way through the dingy apartment complex she found herself in, excusing herself past simple-minded Ithorians and roaming Aqualish.

She nearly tripped over an elderly human man who was crouched to the floor with a scrub brush, working at a single stain on a floor with millions. Mission called out to her, her voice coming from Bastila's side, and she realized she'd nearly overshot the Twi'lek girl. Carth came huffing to a stop beside her as Bastila looked into the tiny apartment.

Much of the single room was occupied by drab furniture that seemed not to have been cleaned in years; a cot, a lone drawer chest, a chaise in deplorable condition. There was also an enormous Wookiee in one corner, crouched down near the floor, looking over something she couldn't see. She wrinkled her nose at the sharp smell of bile in the air as soon as she entered.

Mission was hovering about near the massive Wookiee, wringing her hands. Cautiously, Bastila moved closer. She fingered the leathery object on her belt with hands soaked in cold sweat. As she cleared the obstructions, she finally saw who it was they were leaned over.

It was him. The face, forever burned into her memory, confirmed it beyond any shadow of a doubt; this was Darth Revan.

He appeared unconscious, or lost in a delirium; eyes closed, limbs jerking spasmodically, tortured sounds worming from his throat.

"Please," Mission said, lip quivering, "you can help him, right?"

Bastila gulped as she bent down to a knee to examine him further. She was gripping the thing on her belt in a white-knuckled fist, so tight were her nerves. She'd always expected she would finally come to face him again, but actually being here, face to face with the Dark Lord himself, she realized this was the last place she wanted to be. Her mind wanted her to flee.

_No,_ she told herself, her Jedi training overriding her mind. Her mind couldn't be trusted to do what was called for, only her Jedi teachings and their mandates mattered. She couldn't decide on her own what to do, couldn't be so arrogant as to think she was wise enough to know better than the combined wisdom of her betters.

She had a duty to perform.

"Yes," she answered Mission, "I believe I can." The cold weight of the object in her hand seemed relentless in its reminder of what needed to be done. But her hand refused to move, her mind still rebelled, stalled. "He has been having headaches?" she asked instead.

Mission nodded, looking on the verge of new tears. "He had them a lot, they'd make him unconscious for hours. He said sometimes he'd forget he was alive." She turned desperate eyes to Bastila. "But he was getting better! Why did this have to happen?"

Bastila sighed, forcing down her foolish doubts and qualms, steeling herself to the necessity of her duty, and her own irrelevance. "He was once a Jedi," she explained, hoping a small nugget of truth would help set the girl's mind at ease. "Sometimes, when someone is severed from the Force, it can linger inside them and take on a life of its own. Eventually it begins taking over their minds, which the body resists. The person's sanity is the casualty of such a disaster, their minds unable to fight the very power inside itself, eventually dissolving under the pressure.

"I'm afraid this is the only way we can save him."

Her hands finally moved, and she locked the cold leather collar around Revan's neck.

* * *

Revan's eyes snapped open. Bastila gasped and flinched back as a torrent of alien thoughts rampaged through her mind. He was cognizant, the daggerlike gaze that had once made planets tremble fixed on her would surely have made her knees buckle had she been standing.

"No," she heard him whisper in deadly horror. He turned his red-eyed gaze to Mission. "No! She's here to kill me!"

Incredibly, Revan found his feet faster than Bastila could keep up with and bolted for the apartment door. Carth tackled him as he tried to leap past them and escape. He struggled in the Republic man's grip, but Bastila was quicker, unleashing a stream of her power into the collar around Revan's neck. The specially constructed artifact supplied her by the Jedi Council worked as effectively as if she had slammed a sledgehammer down on Revan's head, pinning him under an onslaught of crippling pain.

He cried out in agony as he fell back to the floor. Revan reached stiff fingers to the leather at his neck, only to withdraw them the moment they touched, searing bolts of pain shooting into his fingertips. "No!" he rasped again, everything stripped away from the sheer terror in his voice. "She's going to kill me!"

It was at this point, incoherent thoughts rushing through her head like errant castoffs from a raging whirlwind, that Bastila realized the full extent of what her power had done to Revan's mind.

She had not simply destroyed his mind, but obliterated it. Fragments of consciousness left behind by the firestorm of her untrained outpouring of power had formed new connections with other ravaged pieces, growing and stretching into a nightmarishly convoluted tangle that pulsed and throbbed with uncontrolled mental violence, casting emanations in every direction as it discarded disjointed shards of thought it couldn't process.

During the moment when she destroyed who and what he was, Bastila realized that she had also imprinted a powerful suggestion in the ruins of his psyche. Acting out a pure need to stop him, kill him if she must, she'd left him with the indelible belief that she wanted to kill him.

"Stop it!" Mission screamed. "Leave him alone! Don't you think he's suffered enough already!"

"Mission, this is the only way I can help him," Bastila tried to calmly respond. She was no longer even sure if it was possible to help him in any way. "This must be done, as much for his own protection as everyone else's. It is too dangerous to let him roam free."

"But why?" Mission cried again. Revan was writhing and gasping for air at Bastila's feet.

"He no longer has any idea how to control his powers, and if left alone, the headaches which have already driven him mad will kill him. He is as much a danger to himself as he is to others. This is for his own protection. even if he does not believe so."

It was true. At least, she and the Council believed so. The collar's use was to lock away the Force in one such as him to keep it from running rampant in him, causing the intense headaches which could easily prove fatal. The Council were convinced his mind had reached this state, but the collar's primary use to her was that it would enable her to control him.

"But--"

"I think you'd better let her do what she needs to do, Mission," Carth said firmly, reinforcing Bastila.

"_Let us see if she can help him, Mission,_" said the towering Wookiee Zaalbar, taking Mission under a huge arm.

Bastila turned her attention back to Revan, who was gasping for air at her feet. Taking in the sight of him, fully, completely, for the first time, it was shocking to see how low he'd come from his days of dark majesty.

Serpentine twists of hair hung over his face like unkempt weeds. Behind them, his eyes stared at her with deep red irises like chips of cold garnet. His was a ragged, wild face, made almost frightening by the livid scar that raced across his pale skin--from the crown of his forehead, across his bladelike nose, and through both lips. The streaks of his beard were long and untrimmed, spread across his jaw and chin like vines gone too long without being pruned.

The burnished red armor and dark maroon and black robes he'd once worn were no more, replaced by a collection of dirty, tattered street clothes and pieces from several cloaks haphazardly patched together. He no longer resembled the Dark Lord of the Sith in any way, looked like nothing more than the nameless transient he was.

As Revan regained some of his lucidity, he again began scrambling away from her, only this time back into the corner of the room in his futile efforts to escape. "No," he mumbled, pain still evident in his voice. His back against the wall, he scrunched himself tight into the corner.

"Leave me alone," he muttered weakly.

Bastila bent down close to him. He tried to shrink away but there was nowhere for him to go. He was trapped.

"I want to help you," she said softly.

Suddenly, he balled his fists and screamed. "_Leave me alone!_"

Taking no chances, Bastila unleashed a bolt of power into his collar which sizzled into his brain, instantly rendering him unconscious.

* * *

After laying Revan out on the cot to let him rest and recover and calming Mission down, Bastila went to pace outside the apartment, thinking on what to do next. With the Sith in orbit with a fleet and the Tarisian government corrupted, finding a way off the planet was going to be difficult indeed. She'd seen the Sith use this tactic before; once their naval blockade was in place, they would slowly tighten the noose until either the planet capitulated, or, if it had already fallen, it yielded up its wanted fugitives--in this case, her. Sith soldiers could storm the Lower City virtually at any moment and she had nowhere to go. Some places, like the Hidden Bek's base, might hold out for a time, but against the sheer numbers the Sith had at their disposal, planetary resistance against an occupying force, without support or reinforcement, was largely futile. The best strategy was to stop the Sith in space, before they could establish their blockade.

Carth was inside the room, watching the captive Revan with a blaster close at hand, Mission and Zaalbar had gone to do an errand for Gadon Thek; Bastila was alone with her thoughts, pacing back and forth in the hallway.

She'd never been particularly good at this sort of thing, after all, it had never been her responsibility. Her contribution to the war effort was mainly meditation aboard warships; she was inexperienced at evading capture and escaping enemy-occupied territory on her own.

Bastila tried to calm her mind and reach into the Force, feeling the reassurance of its serene touch. Surely the Force would guide her. Surely...

"Ahem!"

Bastila whirled about to face a heavily-muscled, square-shouldered, massive hulk of a man standing not ten feet from her, hefting a formidable blaster rifle casually in one hand. His face had a few wrinkles from age and his hair was beginning to gray, but he didn't look a man who feared much of anything. His blocky features, not to mention the odd tattoo here and there on his bared, tree-like arms, suggested Mandalorian heritage.

She regarded him carefully. "May I help you?"

He waggled a finger at her. "Not the best way for a young woman such as yourself to react when confronted by a stranger in Lower City Taris. You aren't even armed. I might have been someone intent on spoiling your honor, how do you expect to defend yourself?"

Bastila frowned, crossing her arms at the man. "Despite my appearance, I am hardly defenseless."

The man grinned. "I thought you'd say that."

"What do you want?" Bastila asked.

"Maybe the same thing you want, sister. My name's Canderous Ordo, and I work for the local Exchange boss, Davik Kang. But acting as enforcer for a mafia man is no worthy task for a Mandalorian, and I'm looking to get off Taris. You're Jedi, so I'm sure you must be, too. Maybe we can help each other out."

"Jedi? You must be joking."

"Ah-ah-ah!" Canderous held something up for her to see. It was her lightsabre.

Bastila fought to keep her jaw from dropping.

"No, you really are a Jedi. And it sure would be a shame if Davik were to find out you were here, hiding out with the cute little Twi'lek."

"Name your price, mercenary scum!" Bastila spat.

"Oh, now you've hurt my feelings," Canderous mocked. "I already told you; I want off Taris, and I think we can help each other out."

"How?"

"Davik's ship, the _Ebon Hawk_, it's the only ship within a parsec of this rotten world fast enough to run the Sith blockade. Problem is, I can't get access, and if Davik caught me sniffing around I'd be in real trouble. I figure since you're already in trouble, and since I can always tell on you if you don't agree, you don't have much to lose and a lot to gain by helping me."

Bastila thought over his suggestion for a moment. It seemed airtight, but there was nothing about this man that made her want to go along with it. Perhaps it was because he smelled too much the Mandalorian he was--remorseless, opportunistic.

"You make a sound proposition, but I would rather not put my life in your hands."

He chuckled. "I could say the same about you, now couldn't I? What do you say, Jedi? We gonna work together, or do I have to get on the squealer and let every bounty hunter on the continent know where you are, maybe some Sith patrols for insurance?"

"I see." Bastila was furious with herself for having been caught off-guard. Leaving her lightsabre was her first mistake, and, to a degree, excusable. This was not. He had her at a complete disadvantage. But he was right; they both did stand to gain much by escaping Taris. From what she knew of Mandalorians, working petty enforcement jobs for a crime lord would be demeaning to the point of desperation.

"Very well, then. We'll work together," she said finally, having on other realistic choice.

"Great. Come see me in Javyar's Cantina tomorrow. Your Twi'lek friend should be able to tell you where it is. I'll have all the information you need to get into the hangar by then."

"I see."

As he turned to leave, he tossed her lightsabre to her and left Bastila wondering if she had found their way off Taris, or made the worst decision of her life.


	7. Perseverance

_VII. Perseverance_

Namenlos gasped a breath as he opened his eyes, throwing his arms out in front of his face to block a blow he haltingly realized wasn't coming. He felt a soft mattress beneath him, he was on Mission's bed for some reason. Wrinkling his nose, he tried to remember just what had happened. His mind was clearer than it had been in days, he realized, the headache only a distant memory.

Then he remembered. She'd found him.

Namenlos erupted from off the bed and reached for the knife he kept on a holster inside his sleeve, but it wasn't there. He scanned the room, trying to identity the source of the threat he could feel drawn over him like a gossamer blanket he couldn't shake, a spider's web that clung to everything it touched, percolating icy dread through his bones.

He heard a distinctly familiar sound and turned to face a man in an orange jacket holding him at blaster point.

"Don't come any closer," the man growled.

Absent a weapon of his own, Namenlos knew he had little chance of getting by without being shot at least twice by the man, so he backed off a little bit as he studied his adversary. The man seemed to whisper into a hand device he quickly retrieved from his belt; Namenlos couldn't make out the words above a pounding in his skull.

It was the blood rushing to his head, he'd gotten to his feet too fast. Yellow and purple spots swam in his vision and Namenlos fought to keep from collapsing back to the floor. As he staggered, he put his hands to the sides of his head as if it would help steady his dizziness. Brushing through his tangled hair down past his neck, he felt something.

Tentatively, he put fingers to the thing he could feel hanging around his neck. It felt like the smooth leather surface of a collar. Running his hands around the circumference of his neck confirmed it.

Sensations filled his head, thoughts of enslavement, indoctrination, and torture at the hands of implacable captors inundated his waking mind. Collars meant oppression. You collared a captive, a slave; an animal.

He was not an animal.

Locking his fingers around the obscene object, he pulled as hard as he could to rip it from his neck.

The shock of the pain that raced through his fingers, up his arm, and into his head, made him instantly let go and dropped him to the floor with a scream of agony. For an instant after letting go all he could feel was the tingling after-effects of the pain ripping through him, the blood pounding in his head shut off all sounds from his hearing. He panted to regain the breath that had been torn from his lungs.

When finally the feeling passed, he looked back up and saw her. He didn't know from where he could remember her, but it was _her_. She was going to kill him.

Namenlos tried to get to his feet and run, tried to crawl on his hands and knees, tried to scoot away on his belly, but found to his horror that his limbs were paralyzed and he could not move so much as one finger as she came ever closer to him.

"You!" he hissed hatefully at the woman who would end his precious life, the life he wanted back.

As if in reaction to his words, she paused in mid-stride. He could feel the aura of threat seething about her like a storm. She regarded him with cold gray eyes. "You needn't fear me," she said.

"What did you do to me!" Namenlos gasped, still trying in vain to move his body, if only so he wouldn't have to look up from the floor at his executioner. He wasn't interested in her lies. "What did you do with Mission?" he asked, hoping to stall the inevitable.

The woman frowned, pursing her lips. "Why, nothing. She led me here so that I could help you." As she was speaking, she bent down and lightly passed a hand out over him, and Namenlos felt control return to his paralyzed limbs. He quickly shuffled into the corner, as far from her as he could manage while he tried to think of what to do. The orange-jacketed man was still blocking the only exit, keeping him trapped with his executioner.

Namenlos chuckled a bitter laugh. "Why didn't you kill me, if that's so obviously what you want? Just kill me and get it over with." He turned away. "I hate you."

"You were dying," he heard her say. He tried to ignore her. "If not for me, yes you might have lived for a short time, but you would have eventually died in more pain than you can even begin to imagine. I know about your headaches; you might have endured them for a time, but they are lethal. I gave to you the only means of keeping them from killing you before you can be sufficiently trained."

"Trained!" Namenlos erupted in livid fury. "Trained!" He snagged the leather collar with a finger and pulled it into view, dimly noting the buzz of the warning pain in his hand. "Is that what this is for? So you can 'train' me? I will not be trained, not by you or anyone else. I am not a beast for you to tame, I am a thinking person who wants to be free of you."

She shook her head emphatically. "No, I assure you, that is not what this is about. You are Force-sensitive, and that gift must be brought to task before it kills you."

The full import of her words took a moment to sink in. The Force. It was something he only had a vague knowledge of, mostly from Mission's stories, but he could easily grasp its importance and dead seriousness. It this were true, that he was sensitive to and able to call on the Force... he couldn't even begin to comprehend the magnitude of what it meant for him. But he was sure it could mean nothing good.

"The Force?" he asked tentatively, reluctant to trust the word of the one who wished his murder, but fearing the consequences of ignoring something of such weight. If it were true, it would certainly explain a number of things.

Letting out a sigh, she clasped her hands together at her waist. "My name is Bastila. I have been searching the galaxy for you for almost a year."

"If not to kill me, then why?"

"Because I know that you need my help," Bastila responded. "You need help because the Force inside you has driven you mad and you do not even know it. Before I found you, it was devouring your mind, piece by piece, every day."

Namenlos fell silent, absorbing her words. He didn't know if he should trust anything she said, but her words seemed to ring true. Although he resented being told he was a madman, that he had no control of his own intellect, he certainly knew that it had felt to him like he was slipping away with each passing day, but that was no longer the case. Indeed, he felt fuller, more alive than he could ever remember feeling. Even so, he detested the collar she'd put around his neck. It reminded him of seeing Natacha beaten and raped when no one would help her but him.

He smiled a bit at that memory of being a help to her, it was a shining triumph in his dark life. He'd never seen her again, but he was glad to have delivered her from that fate. That was also the day he'd met Mission and started to learn about companionship.

But, if not for Mission, this Bastila would never have found him, and never have collared him. His smile withered.

"Why do you care?" he asked.

Namenlos saw Bastila hesitate before answering. "It is my duty."

"I see," he muttered darkly. "So what does my captivity gain you?"

She frowned. "It is not captivity."

"Will you take this collar off me?"

"The collar must remain to help keep your gift from killing you, and so I can be sure you won't try to leave without my permission."

"That's what captivity is. I'm your prisoner."

She sighed again. "This must be done if I am to help you."

"I don't want your help."

"I am sorry, but you have no choice. If you make me, I will be forced to use the collar to control you, if I have the need. I will not enjoy doing it, but I will if you make it necessary."

Namenlos pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his crossed arms. He was starting to wonder if he wouldn't have preferred she just kill him. She would rather enslave him; either way, she was taking his life away.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because we all must look beyond our selfish desires if we are to carry out our duty of sacrificing for the greater good," she answered.

In that instant, Namenlos made a decision. He could be her prisoner, let her have what she wanted, and lose everything--his freedom, his will, his very life. Or he could fight to take his life back. He knew that wanting to have a life of his own was not selfish, as she said, but an inalienable right. No one had the right to dictate to him how his life would be, so he would fight to have it back.

"If I complete my training, will you let me go?" he asked, looking back up at her.

Bastila averted her eyes. "I--yes. When the Council is satisfied, I am certain you will be set free."

He didn't really think she was telling him the truth, since she'd not been completely honest with him the entire time. But then again, it was possible she _was_ telling him the truth, or at least the truth as she knew it. That thought buoyed his hopes, which before had been in ashes. One word raised the hairs on his neck, though.

"Council?" he asked suspiciously.

Bastila nodded. "I must take you to the Jedi Council on Dantooine. There we can begin your training."

Dantooine. He felt crushed beneath an avalanche of gloom at the thought of again being ripped from everything he'd once known. Lower City Taris, with all its gangs, bigots, and general lawlessness, was a terrible place to live, but it was the only home he had. There were people he'd come to know, befriend even. Mission especially; after all, she couldn't have known that this was the worst person to ask to help him, and she had only been concerned for him. Despair sank its claws into him. He'd likely never see her again.

Namenlos angrily reminded himself being miserable wouldn't solve his problem. He was finished letting the universe play him for its whipping boy. He wouldn't be a pawn anymore.

"So you're abducting me as well as enslaving me?"

"As I said, this is not captivity," she explained in a maddeningly patient tone.

He gave her a blank look. "You aren't wearing the collar; I am." Disgusted, Namenlos started collecting his few things. "So, _mistress_," he said as he folded up the white sheet with overlapping rows of symbols he didn't understand that hung in his corner, enunciating the appellation like a curse, glaring, "when are we leaving? How soon do we get to where we're going so I can start learning to get this collar off?"

Bastila folded her arms and furrowed her brow in thought as she watched him. "Soon," she answered idly, shifting on her feet as if in impatience. "I need to work some things out, and I have a feeling I am going to need to take you with me." She turned to the man in the orange jacket, spoke to him in a low voice. "Unless you think you can manage without me."

Namenlos watched intently as the man shook his head. "You got here just in time. You were right; he's unpredictable."

They thought he couldn't hear them, speaking in their whispers, but his sensitive ears caught every word.

"Alright, Carth, we will just have to take him along."

"Take me where?" Namenlos asked as he pulled a filthy jacket over his shoulders.

Bastila turned back to look at him. "There are Sith on this planet, and if you believe one thing I've said to you, believe this; if they discover you, they will kill you. They perceive you as a threat, and will not stand your existence. Even now, they are hunting you, and me as well. It is imperative that we stay out of their notice and escape this planet before they find either of us."

Namenlos wanted to say he'd take his chances, that he didn't think the Sith would think much of a stinking transient who half the time couldn't even defend himself, let alone cause harm to others, but he knew she didn't really care what he thought. She'd already made that abundantly clear.

"Anyway," she went on, "there is a man I must meet with who may be able to help me find a way to get us off this planet before the Sith realize either of us are here. And you are coming with me."

"Do I have a choice?" he asked sarcastically.

"You know I would rather not do this. It is for your own good. Don't make this more than it is."

"Fine, whatever," he mumbled, not really caring about her excuses. "Can I have my knife back?"

Her brow twitched. "No."

"What? Are you afraid I'm going to attack you?" He pulled at the collar, wincing at the pain that shot into his fingertips at the light contact. "With this around my neck? I need my knife for protection."

Bastila huffed. "You will leave that to me."

He glared back. "No. Until you start teaching me how to control these headaches so I can get this collar off, I'm not trusting my life to you." He held out his hand. "Now, unless you aren't confident in your ability to put me down with crippling pain, my knife, please."

* * *

Bastila chose to indulge Revan's request for his knife back; after all, he made a valid point that he was really no longer a threat to her, and with Carth's watchfulness, it was unlikely they would be unable to stop him were he to do something unexpected. Mostly, Revan - or Namenlos, as she was beginning to think of him - had fallen silent and moody, like a cauldron slowly seething on the flame. She was still aware of just how dangerous a man she had now under her control, and would take no chances.

Carth, at least, seemed distracted enough by watching their prisoner, and was no longer pelting her with questions she had no intention of answering. He, too, seemed to sense the threat held under the surface of the man by only the thinnest of curtains, as well as the importance of her mission. This was one instance where she was thankful for his distrustfulness; it meant he, too, would take no chances with her prisoner.

She twitched at the word prisoner in her mind. Namenlos wasn't a prisoner, not really, he only thought he was. It was for his own good that she was taking him away, as had been the case all along. After all, the ones who suffered the most under the influence of the Dark Side were those in its grip. They were victims as much as anyone else, and deserved compassion and understanding, and above all, help in finding the Light again.

Namenlos was wrong, she didn't want to kill him, and never had. She was only concerned with setting straight one of the Force's errant children onto the path of righteousness.

But before any of that could begin, Bastila needed to escape Taris. She'd been running the Mandalorian's words over in her mind, considering everything he'd said to her, searching for some way to avoid this avenue, to avoid placing her trust in the word of a murderer. But she found herself empty of alternatives. She would have to see what he had to say, whether he truly was interested in getting off the planet, or only in collecting her for the Sith.

With a start, she realized she was going to have trouble finding the place the Mandalorian had said to meet. She'd only been to Taris once before, years ago when she was little more than a child, accompanying her master on a task for the Order to the Hidden Beks. They'd not wandered around the surrounding area much, so while Bastila knew vaguely where she was, finding something specific was likely going to be beyond her knowledge.

"Hey! Where are you going!"

Bastila sighed. It was Mission Vao. She and the Wookiee, Zaalbar, were approaching her and Carth on the sidewalk, undoubtedly returning from some errand for the Hidden Beks. The girl just couldn't understand.

She started to open her mouth and explain to the girl, but no words came out. She wondered if any explanation would be enough.

Mission, just a few feet away, cast a suspicious glare at Bastila. "I said, where are you going? Where are you taking him?"

Bastila could feel the weight of Carth's silent expectation for her to do the explaining. She forced down a flash of irritation. "I must leave, and take Namenlos to a place where he can be helped to regain control of his abilities." The feeling of the unchecked power roiling around the man collared at her side was awe-inspiring even as it was disturbing. Infinitely more so were the whirling eddies of discarded cognition ricocheting from his damaged mind and worming their way into hers. Only with the greatest of effort could she block out the sensations and half-completed perceptions that were not her own.

Mission did not look satisfied. Crossly, she folded her arms and scowled with such a fantastic glower as only adolescents could conjure, sticking her chin forward impudently. "Na-ah! You're not taking him anywhere."

The longer she stayed still, the more Bastila became aware of the exposedness of her surroundings. The pervasive smell of rubber smoke and backed-up sewers was making her eyes water, the particle-filled air made breathing unpleasant, and it seemed around every corner she could hear the faint sounds of approaching pedestrians, of unknown dispositions and questionable character. Every individual they came across had to be treated as potentially an enemy; she was, after all, in enemy territory. The Tarisian government had made their own peace with the Sith, and peace with the Sith meant only one thing: occupation. Taris was a minefield where she didn't even know where the boundaries were, a thousand innocuous-seeming dangers just waiting for her to make the tiniest of mistakes.

Bastila decided, for peace of mind's sake, to keep on moving. For the time being, Mission and her Wookiee friend Zaalbar posed no threat to her, so she would consent to their presence; but if she could dislodge the persistent Twi'lek girl, all the better.

Like a wary hound, Mission kept pace with Bastila, still scowling as she gave Namenlos' arm a reassuring squeeze. "He saved Big Z and me, you know," she said to Bastila.

"Is that so?"

She nodded proudly. "We were exploring down in the Maze. A gang of Gamorreans surprised us, took me and Big Z hostage. They were probably gonna sell us to slavers or something. 'Los could have left us down there - no one comes into the Maze looking for people gone missing - but he came after us!" Mission wrung her hands, seemingly in frustration that she couldn't express exactly what she was trying to say. Bastila knew the feeling, but said nothing, choosing to let the girl talk herself out.

"He's a hero," Mission said pointedly. "Why are you treating him like an animal?"

"I'm not!" Bastila snapped, momentarily losing control of her voice, allowing irritation to slip into her words. Breathing deeply, she lowered her voice and continued. "I am helping him the only way he can be helped. If I do not bring him to where I must, then even this will not be enough--he will die from his headaches, it is only a matter of time. Unless I am allowed to do what must be done. You and he may not like it, but you do not fully understand the necessity of this."  
"And you don't know the first thing about him!" Mission practically shrieked. "He's not some crazy who can't control himself or what he does--like you seem to think. How dare you be so unfair to him?"

"I know it may seem unfair to you--"

"I'm coming too."

Bastila gaped at the girl. "What?"

"I'm coming too," Mission repeated, huffing.

"You can't just--"

_"I will accompany him as well,_" said the towering Wookiee Zaalbar. "_I have sworn a lifedebt to this one Namenlos. Where he goes, so too will I go._"

"Great, a walking carpet to deal with," Bastila heard Carth grumble in a barely-audible voice. As crude as it was, it showcased nearly the same frustration as her own. Keeping track of others would complicate her mission. Unless...

Bastila suddenly realized this could prove a boon after all. Certainly the girl could at least help her find the accursed cantina where the Mandalorian had demanded his meeting. Perhaps she could yet be of some use.

"Very well, then," she acquiesced. "We both have Namenlos' best interests at heart, it seems."

"Maybe," Mission muttered. "Where are we going?"

* * *

Bastila hated cantinas. Every single one of the horrid establishments she'd had the misfortune of having to enter had been the same; dark, oppressive, smelling of dozens of unwashed bodies and strong liquor, full of acrid smoke, and blasted by deafening peals and groans of popular music, which to her sounded like the screams of a tortured war machine. This one was no different. Still were the lines of pazaak tables where the foolish squandered what they had in a mindless quest for what they hadn't earned, the bar crowded by hordes eager to drown their responsibilities in the oblivion of alcohol, the stages for third-rate street bands to indulge in their sonic assaults and other paraphernalia for the establishment's dancers to ply their wares for the amusement of its degenerate patrons.

The squalor of the place made her sick. She wondered why the Jedi had never made any efforts to eradicate such places from the Republic worlds. Such obvious dens of hate for any civilized value were breeding grounds for monsters and criminals of every sort. But places like this, even on Coruscant, were quietly accepted by the Jedi. Bastila had sworn that if she were ever to achieve the status of Master, she would make a strong push to have cantinas like this banned or even eliminated.

She wished she could make good on that oath now, but she had business to conduct at the moment and no wherewithal to attempt the dismantling of the establishment. She gritted her teeth at the necessity of the horrible place.

Staying together as best they could in the crowded building, she, Carth, Namenlos, Mission, and Zaalbar weeded their way through the first room, which was filled by holo-screens and tables to either side and a large gambling table in the center. Beyond was the circular bar room, ringed at the perimeter by more tables, and dominated at the center by the bar itself and the stage, where an acid group was either murdering their instruments or simply performing more wretched music. From the room, she could see into other attached parts of the cantina, into the weed rooms, the lounges, and to the doors of the rear chambers where customers were undoubtedly getting private sessions.

Bastila could sense Carth's tension, could practically feel his hand gripping the handle of his blaster in sweaty fingers. She wasn't much better herself in these places. The others, for their part, seemed much more at ease in the horrid establishment. Comfort through familiarity, she supposed.

She easily spotted the man she'd come to meet. He sat at a table near one of the entrances to a side-room, away from most of the crowd in a somewhat quieter section where few people were interested in being. The shadows were deep and nearly swallowed the Mandalorian's hulking figure, but still, his bared shoulders and mountainous biceps were unmistakable even in the low light. Bastila strode purposefully toward him, the others trailing behind her in a loose line.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder, tugging her back. It was Mission.

"That's Canderous Ordo!" she whispered urgently in Bastila's ear.

"I know."

"He's Davik's favorite enforcer, Mandalorian, and ruthless."

"I know, Mission, that's partly why I must meet with him." Bastila didn't particularly feel like explaining that it was because he'd found her misplaced lightsabre that she was in this mess, especially not to a girl who would never understand the pressures she was under.

"Mandalorian?" Namenlos growled behind her. Something in his voice sent chills down Bastila's spine; a quiet, almost silent anger interwoven into the query. She suddenly feared to answer.

"Mandalorian?" he repeated, more forcefully. Bastila groped for her connection to Revan's collar for an instant, just to reassure herself she had him under her control. The seething texture of his voice was terrifying.

She looked back and saw he had no intention of letting the matter drop until he had an answer, so she gave in. "Yes, he's a Mandalorian mercenary." There was a brief, violent spasm in the miasma of torn cognizance around Namenlos, his eyes gleamed like crimson droplets of blood, but he said nothing, returning to stoic silence. Bastila breathed in relief.

Caderous looked up from a brown glass bottle when he saw her approach his table. He crooked an eyebrow and invited her to sit. She shook her head, preferring to stand. She didn't want there to be any obstructions should she have to suddenly defend herself. He shrugged and took a gulp.

"I figured I'd be seeing you again." He sniffed, taking a drag from what Bastila saw was a long cigar that gave off a pungent smoke. She almost gagged at the odor. He twirled it in his fingers. "Neither of us are getting off this planet without each other's help, that much is for sure." Suddenly, he frowned. "Especially now."

"What do you mean?"

Canderous leaned back and crossed his huge arms, talking past the cigar in his impossibly white teeth. "Turns out there're some... complications."

"What kind of problems? Is your plan still feasible or not?"

"I didn't say it wasn't gonna work, darlin', but it is going to be a bit harder. On you, anyway." Leaning forward again, he snuffed the cigar on the bare table, fixing Bastila with a steady stare. "The Sith always complicate things, as I'm sure you've had ample opportunity to discover. Seems they've caught wind of you and your pals, and Malak really, really wants to get his hands on you."

None of this was news to Bastila. She'd been wanted by Revan and then by Malak since the beginning of the whole nightmare. Since before it, actually, if one counted Revan's unending overtures to her to join his crusade against the invading Mandalorians. She'd been barely more than a child then, but he wanted her anyway, promising to teach her to become a proper warrior. She'd always been a target, and always would be until the Sith were defeated.

"I know this already," Bastila dismissed irritably.

Canderous raised one bushy eyebrow shot through with sparse gray hairs. "Then here's something you probably don't know. Davik only knows because he has to know everything, although I'm sure every business on the planet is going to find out real soon. The Sith just imposed a blockade on the planet, meaning, princess, that nobody's going anywhere."

Suddenly, before Bastila could stop him, Namenlos shot forward, across the table, and got his hands around the Mandalorian's throat. "Liar!" he hissed in Canderous' face, baring his teeth in a savage glare.

Bastila hesitated for an instant, spellbound by the sight of Revan's rage in Namenlos' eyes, the infamous fury that reduced cities to ash, annihilated opposing armies on the field of battle, and gripped the hearts and minds of enemies yet to be fought with paralyzing fear. It was now all directed at the Mandalorian inches away from him. She knew she had to get him back under control quickly, before he instigated disaster.

Feeling for the connection to his collar, she instantly let loose a shallow stream of power, just enough, by her estimation, to get him to withdraw. To her shock, however, he shook from the pain induced by the collar, but did not back off. His eyes glaring with hate, he shoved Canderous back against the wall even as Bastila funneled more power into the collar to bring him to heel.

A rumbling growl escaped his throat, but he showed no signs of cracking. Namenlos shoved his face right up against the Mandalorian's. "Why should we trust you, you murderer!" He was forcing the words out past the mounting pain, but they were still charged with his hot fury. "Mandalorian filth!"

With a final outpouring of hatred, he relinquished his grip on Canderous and fell to the tabletop, panting in pain. Carth grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back, holding him awkwardly upright while Namenlos sucked in mouthfuls of air.

"Please forgive him. He can be rather impulsive at times," Bastila said quickly, hoping to repair the damage she knew had already been done. She feared the man would feel betrayed and no longer in a mood to help her.

To her surprise, Canderous casually dismissed it all with a flick of his meaty hand. "Cathar get like that sometimes. It's not the first time something like that's happened. Just keep him on your leash and we won't have any problems."

"Of course." Bastila resented his insinuation, but didn't feel like arguing the point at the moment. She could sense the storm of Namenlos' emotions raging unchecked at the Mandalorian's statement, and sent a bolt of power to the collar to keep him from speaking and further increasing the chance he would anger Canderous into backing out of his deal.

"So what does the blockade mean for your plan?" she asked in earnest. News of a naval blockade was not encouraging. She had expected it, but hoped she might be able to slip away before it came into full effect. From Canderous' remarks, it seemed to be firmly in place already, crushing that hope.

Canderous shrugged again. "Just means a little extra work for you and your buddies. I'm still gonna do my part, but you're gonna have to do something first, before we can get to the business I suggested earlier."

"And what would that be?" she asked cordially.

"You're going to need to kill the Sith governor to get the list of approved transponder codes for ships they allow through the lockdown. Without those codes, it doesn't matter how fast we are, we're space dust."

Bastila blinked. It was as if he'd just told her all she needed to do was prevent the sun from rising in the east.

"Well," Carth pronounced in a sarcastic drawl, "doesn't that sound easy?"

* * *

The mournful distant cawing of a crow reminded Juhani of how lonely she was. Kneeling next to a stream, her arm submerged in the cold water attempting to coax a small trout into her reach so she could satisfy the growling of her stomach, for the thousandth time, she doubted herself. Thinking back on her actions toward her master at the Jedi Academy, she was overcome with guilt. It rushed through her in paralyzing waves as she felt the terrible responsibility of having ended a life.

That knowledge was the most horrible revulsion she could imagine.

She'd not meant to kill Quatra, but the vision Quatra had given her was too intense, too vivid for her to dismiss. Seeing again what those brutes had been doing to her mother, and having finally the power to stop it, there was no way Quatra could have expected her not to act. And yet she had deliberately put herself there, put Juhani in that horrible position of having to act, knowing what it would mean for Quatra.

Why would she do such a thing? The question gnawed at Juhani's insides, devoured even her anger at facing the terrible past again. She hated that Quatra would do something so unfathomable to her. Surely as a Jedi, Quatra would not have wanted her to let such monsters have their way with an innocent like her mother. Then why did she make so terrible the consequences of preventing it?

Juhani let slip one bitter tear from her eye, watched it disappear into the softly flowing waters of the stream. She missed her mother terribly, and she realized that now she missed even the Jedi as family, but she couldn't go back. This was the Dark Side, or so she'd been told. She gave in to her inner passions and committed the unthinkable; she'd killed someone. And not just someone, but her very master.

She plucked her hand from the frigid water, no longer caring about getting a meal.

There was a small grove nearby, just over a series of hills to her north. Juhani was tired of wandering, of constantly moving about the wilderness in fear of being found by Jedi search teams, which were undoubtedly scouring the hills and the plains looking for her. She realized she wanted them to find her, she wanted them to try to take her, because then she would have something to strike out against. She could resist them. There didn't seem to be anything else for her, not since she'd fallen to the Dark Side.

Shaking her arm to help dry off the cold water, Juhani started through the tall grass, full of the brilliant fireblossoms and lovely tiger lilies, on her way to the grove. There was nothing but her and the wilderness. She felt crushed by despair.

As she walked, she tried to focus on other things to take her mind off the horrible things that just wouldn't go away. She tried to drink in the beauty of the landscape in which she found herself, to admire the soft green of the rolling hills and the lush plains dotted with clusters of wildflowers, to appreciate the warm rays of sun from the sapphire sky. A light breeze played across her face, lifting the long stalks of the grass all around her in undulating waves.

Juhani realized there was something in the grass near her.

She could hear the faint rustling nearby, smell traces of the other presence when the air carried to put her downwind of whatever it was. It stayed below the level of the grasses, out of sight, and made so little noise for the amount of movement she could detect she assumed it couldn't be a person stalking her; it had to be wildlife, a Kath hound perhaps.

Though her heart pounded at the possibility of being so near to one of the predators, she realized she wasn't afraid. It felt more like breathless exhilaration.

Juhani slowed her walk, moving cautiously through the intertwined stalks which obscured everything below her knees so she couldn't even see her feet. She _wanted_ this, whatever this was. She wouldn't run.

As she inched forward, at the same time as the wind shifted and brought a full draft of confirming redolence to her nose, the grasses parted before her to reveal what she had suspected; a fully mature Kath hound, razor teeth bared in a low growl of threat.

Juhani was ever conscious of the lightsabre dangling at her belt, but hesitated to draw it. She didn't want to kill this creature. After all, she was the intruder, forcing herself upon it, and it was responding in the only way it knew how; aggression. She didn't want to punish the creature for behaving in its nature out of fear of her.

The Kath hound growled more loudly when she tried to come closer, prompting her to clutch for her lightsabre out of instinct before making her hands go elsewhere. She consciously tried to withdraw her own aggression from the confrontation, while not appearing like she would make a good meal, and in the process, found herself calling on the Force. She didn't want to use the Force, either, since she had fallen to the Dark Side and the power would only consume her.

But once she'd started, it was like putting a foot into a river only to find the current much stronger than appearances would indicate. She was swept away by the indescribable feeling of touching her birthright again, like the light of a thousand candles that warms but does not blind, it filled her with the closest thing to peace she'd felt since fleeing the Academy.

Basking a moment in the pool of her power, she cast it forward at the Kath hound, filling into the void between them her feelings of despair and longing for simple companionship, beckoning the creature's simple mind to answer her call. She could feel it take effect, feel her power shaping the mind of the Kath hound, and slowly its growling quieted into a satisfied purr.

It nudged its head welcomely against her knees. There was something undeniably comforting about that contact.

Her loneliness sated just the smallest bit, Juhani continued on her way to the grove.


	8. The Thorns

_VIII. The Thorns_

Rounding a corner of the sprawling city block, Namenlos used the opportunity to look to the side, away from the pedestrian traffic, and adjust his dark hood to conceal more of his face. His eyes, especially, he didn't want people glimpsing. If no one looked directly at him, all they would see was another man, albeit one with exceptionally long hair. But if anyone studied his face, and especially if they saw his eyes, they would realize he wasn't like them; he was Cathar, or as things went on Taris, alien.

Despite the diverse proliferation of races in the Lower City, Upper City Taris, where he was now, was stringently discriminating of non-Human species. He was already familiar with that brand of bigotry, as he vaguely remembered being welcomed to the planet by a boot in his face and shouts of "Cathar scum!" According to Bastila, Carth, and even Mission, it was far worse in the Upper City. Namenlos didn't need to take Bastila's word at face value, since he already knew most of the truth of her words.

The civilians themselves seemed rather sedate, content to go about their business without troubling their fellows. He guessed the regular sight of the imposing, silver-armored patrols hefting heavy blaster rifles lent a lot of incentive to the people not to make trouble. He wondered if these could be the Sith. If so, he didn't think preventing public disturbances was so awful a thing and wondered why Bastila despised them so much.

Occasionally, chains of transports would pass by on the wide streets, slowly weaving their way through the streams of people, who seemed not at all bothered by the intrusion, nor in much of a hurry to get out of their way. Man and machine shared the same avenues almost seamlessly. In a way, the traffic, both motorized and pedestrian, was like a river. The churning flow of bodies and transports rolled over against the steel and crete banks formed by the faces of thousands of buildings along each thoroughfare and boulevard, swirled and meandered within itself, but never deviated in its onrushing course.

Namenlos had at first wondered if it would be possible for him to disappear into that river, let the currents swallow him and bear him away from his captor. The more he thought about it, letting it simmer in his mind as he walked, the concept eventually brought on the pain from the collar. The wretched device seemed attuned to his very thoughts, and every time he contemplated escape he could feel the icy fingers of its agony twisting his insides so that he feared even to think on the subject.

He would just have to do as Bastila said, for now. She promised he would be taught what was necessary for his collar to be removed without the Force killing him. He didn't have to trust her in order to strive for that end.

Being careful to keep his head low and his face obscured, Namenlos checked the directions he'd been given against the street signs and what he could see around him. He was grateful for the markings at each intersection, for the seemingly endless expanse of the city, like a steel and glass canyon, looked the same everywhere he turned. Only those signs kept him from getting hopelessly lost. Satisfied he was at his destination, Namenlos turned aside from the main street he was on and made for the wall of buildings, heading for one door in particular.

Mentally rehearsing the words he'd been told to say, he entered through a small side door into a tiny droid shop set into the hind end of a massive retail complex that spanned the whole rest of the block. Inside, a dizzying array of droids and droid parts were cluttered in stacks all about the floor and covering the walls on racks, shelves, and some on simple hooks, all arranged in a familiar haphazard fashion. Namenlos didn't know much about droids, but he instantly felt at home in the purposeful clutter.

He lost himself for a moment looking at a neat row of intriguing instruments hanging from a thin wire on the wall; each was long, cylindrical, and polished to a shine. They reminded him of something he couldn't quite place. Probably just something else that had been taken from him.

Shaking himself from the brief mental lapse, Namenlos turned toward the front of the store, where he realized with a start that he had company. Two of the silver-armored patrolmen were up close to the counter and the red-hued Twi'lek woman who looked to be the owner - or at least the tender - of the shop. He thought that was odd, since she was observably non-Human. The two patrolmen, with loud, raucous voices, were giving her a hard time.

"You said you would be finished with the captain's scanners this morning," one of the men, leaning in over the counter. The other stood back, letting his comrade lord all his shiny-silver, faceless-helmet intimidation over the frightened woman. "Have you been playing all day?" he said ominously.

In almost a panic, the woman recoiled from the two Sith, indicating more stacks of complex-looking electronics behind the counter, half-in, half-out of a back room that looked even more cluttered. "I was working--I promise!" she said, desperate to get the two men to believe her. "I swear I was! But--but the customers, they come and bring me their things." Even from across the store, Namenlos could see frightened tears on her face as she tried to reason with men who obviously did not abide by reason. "There was too much work piling up! I couldn't just let it all sit--"

The other Sith, who had been hanging back, all of a sudden cocked his arm and struck the Twi'lek woman square on her jaw. She staggered from the blow, crying in shock and pain as the Sith wound up to hit her again.

Hot fury pounded through Namenlos. She didn't have to be one of his own race; someone being persecuted aroused nothing but black hatred from his heart. Everything seemed to dissolve before the onslaught of that primal urge to defend, to strike out at those who thought they had free reign over another's life. Nothing in the world mattered to him at that moment, nothing but punishing the guilty.

Gripped by implacable rage, Namenlos reached an arm toward the perpetrators who were about to beat on the defenseless woman again.

Nothing happened.

It was like falling on his face, taking a step forward only to belatedly realize there was nothing to meet his foot, plunging into an abyss where he expected solid ground. For a precious instant while he groped with why nothing had happened, or why he had ever even expected anything, the Sith landed his blow. The woman cried from the second blow.

He put aside his confusion to be considered later, again focusing on his naked rage, and barreled forward, clearing the ground between him and the two thugs in what seemed only the blink of an eye. He crashed his shoulder into the back of the nearest patrolman, who ricocheted off the counter in front of him and fell heavily to the floor. The other Sith instantly whirled around, sending an armored elbow flying at Namenlos' face, but he dodged out of the way and lunged for the Sith's legs, toppling him as well.

The two Sith got to their feet relatively quickly, both swearing in vile curses. Neither looked willing to back away from the fight. Namenlos growled in challenge.

"Looks like the civilian needs to be taught not to defy the will of the Sith," one of them snarled. Their hands went to their blasters.

Namenlos didn't hesitate. He drew the knife from his sleeve and charged forward before they could bring their deadly weapons to bear. He plunged forward with the reckless abandon of releasing himself entirely to the struggle, knowing how easily he could wind up dead if he made the slightest of errors. There was enough of his anger that he didn't even consider for an instant that he shouldn't kill them.

His thrusting knife caught the hand of the closest Sith, ripping between armor plates and slicing across his wrist. He screamed and dropped the blaster, grasping his hand in an effort to slow the gush before he bled out. Namenlos twisted his body and slammed a knee into the man's temple. That left one other.

The Sith got one shot off before Namenlos got to him. He shoved the barrel of the pistol aside at the last possible moment so the bolt tearing from the weapon only grazed his shoulder and discharged into the wall behind him. Using both hands, Namenlos wrenched at the blaster, engaging the two of them in a wrestling contest where life was at stake. He shoved forward, sending the Sith crashing into a shelf full of dismembered droid limbs. Each piece made a thud on the floor as it landed.

The shelf above, hanging loose, plummeted down as well, and the Sith, in its direct line of fire, clenched his core muscles, for an instant relaxing his hold on the blaster as instinct took over. Namenlos acted to pull the weapon from him, but the Sith managed to dodge the falling obstacle and renew his efforts. It was too late, and Namenlos plucked the deadly blaster from his hands.

To his own misfortune, in the act of wrenching the weapon from the hands of the Sith, Namenlos lost his balance, slipped and fell, creating an opening that the Sith ruthlessly exploited. A heavy boot knocked the blaster from his hand and the Sith lunged for his newly-liberated weapon.

Caught up in the rush of combat, Namenlos grabbed the first thing that met his hand--a heavy droid part, and hurled it at the Sith soldier. It caromed off the silver helmet with a metallic clang and a dull thud of flesh knocking around inside. The man dropped still as a tombstone.

Namenlos got to his feet and stood panting for a moment, trying to calm his racing heart. He looked over at the Twi'lek shop owner, who was holding a hand to her stinging cheek while she gaped at him in shock.

"You fool!" she breathed in disbelief. "Look what you've done!"

"What was I supposed to do?" Namenlos asked angrily, still trying to unclench his fist.

"No one who values their life would even think of assaulting a Sith soldier," the woman told him. "You are doomed. And I am ruined." Despair crept into her voice. "Once they have executed you, I will be deported to the Lower City and never be allowed to work again. Or worse."

Namenlos was starting to get a feeling of just how truly awful a place Taris was. He'd always known about the corruption in the Lower City, where he'd spent most of his remembered life, but hearing the resigned terror in this woman's voice told him these Sith were not much better - and probably a great deal worse - than the violent gangs that controlled the slums below the surface of the city. Even still, he refused to believe he should have simply let the men beat on her; he'd acted under all the information he had at the time, and done what he thought was the right thing.

If he couldn't trust his own judgments, then he really was insane.

Anxiously, Namenlos ran a hand through his clotted hair as he looked down at the damage he'd caused in the scuffle with the two Sith. One looked like he was still breathing, but there was a large pool of blood by the one whose arm he'd cut. He saw the black scorch mark left by the one blaster shot the soldier had gotten off. There was no way this would go unnoticed.

He was bending down to retrieve his knife when the thought came to him. He abruptly turned back to the shopkeeper.

"I can get you out of this," he told her.

The Twi'lek woman shot him a look filled both with hope and fearful reluctance. "How?"

"Simple. I broke in. I'm a violent criminal, an outlaw banned from the Upper City. I broke in, attacked the two noble patrolmen, ransacked your shop, stole some things, and left them both for dead. You were a helpless prisoner during the whole thing. I was holding you at gunpoint."

She looked dubious, and nearly overcome with dread that he might be wrong. "But--but the Sith won't believe me--I'm not like them."

"Neither am I," Namenlos reaffirmed her. "You're Twi'lek, I'm Cathar; we are both objects of their hatred because we're different from them. They won't have any trouble believing an illegal alien could have done this, or that you couldn't have stopped me. They think we make only good criminals and indentured slaves. As long as they have someone besides themselves to blame, they'll be happy."

She still did not look entirely convinced. "But, then why should they believe me?"

Namenlos shook his head. "They won't have to, if it comes down to it." He thumbed his finger at the one Sith still breathing. "He was here, I attacked him. That's all the proof they'll need. He will undoubtedly invent some story far more fanciful than mine which will just paint him as the hero and me as the villain anyway. Just tell them that I'm a violent thief who trashed your shop and they'll believe you, I promise."

"Ok," she said hesitantly, then frowned in dismay. "But nothing is missing! If I tell them you robbed me, they will know I'm lying when they discover there is nothing missing!"

Namenlos grimaced. "I need to take the droid that's for Canderous."

She gave him a blank look. "You'll get yourself killed."

He shook his head. "No, you don't understand. I'm doing this for him. He sent me to be his errand boy because he doesn't want Davik to find out."

The Twi'lek's eyes widened. "Canderous betraying the Exchange? You are going to die." She frowned again. "How do you come to work for a Mandalorian? You are Cathar."

Namenlos sighed. He had better things to do at the moment than think about that. "Believe me, I do not want to," he said simply. There was no way for him to explain how he could work for someone whose people had butchered and murdered his, no way to convey how little choice in the matter he had.

"Just give me the droid," he said. "Everyone will come after me."

* * *

The waiting was fraying Bastila's nerves like a brittle rope from an old landskiff, like the ones her father used to drive. She was eighty percent confident that her connection to the collar would prevent Namenlos from deviating from his task, but that other twenty percent was filled with possibilities she didn't even want to guess at. Judging by his previous reactions to her attempts at guiding him, it was not difficult at all to tell that he resented and despised her. In his madness, his delusional self-interest, it was more than a possibility that he might do something catastrophic, especially if she had no way of directly keeping his impulses in check.

She just had to have faith her connection to the collar and its safeguards would keep him on track. She was virtually entrusting everything to his impaired judgment. If he got himself caught by causing a disturbance or some other rash action, it stood to reason that she would be caught as well, and Malak and the Sith would then have a crippling new advantage over the Republic. Her capture could very well spell doom for democracy everywhere. And she'd put all that responsibility onto the unknowing shoulders of a wounded Cathar with a mind that did not function properly, who hated her and her reminders of his greater duty.

As Bastila paced back and forth in the relatively sheltered confines of a roofed storage yard, out of the way of the bustling crowds and especially the armored Sith patrols she so needed to avoid, her insides twisted into knots of worry and anxiety. Since the instant Namenlos had left her field of vision she'd second-guessed herself over the choice to send him. She could easily have sent Carth, but his paranoid character was of paramount value with her strange company, Mission the Twi'lek girl and Zaalbar the Wookiee. She still didn't know enough to trust them or not, and the extra set of eyes with which to watch them was invaluable.

She thought again about their plan: Infiltrate a military base taken over by the occupying Sith forces by means of an advanced droid the Mandalorian Canderous had commissioned for Davik Kang, kill or otherwise incapacitate the Sith governor in order to retrieve a list of transponder codes, and then team up with Canderous himself to actually steal the ship they needed. Bastila hated trusting strangers, especially with such important things as this. She was trusting Namenlos - Dark Lord Revan himself - to carry out much of the plan, and trusting a Mandalorian mercenary to be true to his word and help her.

"He's coming!" Bastila heard Mission urgently whisper, keeping her voice low to prevent it carrying to unfriendly ears.

"Did he bring it?" She was relieved beyond measure her safeguards had worked, and almost didn't care about the success or failure of his task.

Mission nodded. "Yep, there's a T3 droid with him."

"Great, and that was just the easy part," Carth remarked.

"Don't remind me," Bastila said under her breath as Namenlos approached. The squat little gray droid at his side certainly didn't look like much, but according to Canderous it had decryption algorithms strong enough to break into the vaults of a Munilinst bank corporation, and would certainly get them into the Sith military base.

Just another part of the plan she had to take on faith.

Her questing gaze stopped short when she noticed Namenlos wincing with each step and surreptitiously clutching his shoulder. The instant he came into her view, she could again feel trailing tendrils of cognition radiating from his damaged mind, but they offered no clue as to what had transpired while he was gone. His face, as well, blank and resigned, was infuriatingly hard to read. Yet she knew something had to have happened.

As soon as he was within striking distance, she grabbed his sleeve and jerked him around to face her.

"What happened?" she asked urgently.

"What?" he responded in a dead voice.

"You are injured," Bastila clarified. "What happened while you were gone?"

Namenlos shrugged. "Why should you care?"

Bastila suppressed the urge to tear at her hair and scream at him. "It's important that I know," she answered instead, hoping he would respond better to reason than antics. The others, seemingly able to sense the tension between her and her charge, wisely stayed quiet.

With deliberate slowness, Namenlos crossed his arms at her and curled his mouth. "What does it matter what I do? I was glad to do it, even if it won't make any difference."

Bastila frowned. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "There were two Sith beating on a helpless woman." He gestured helplessly. "I had to do something."

Bastila could feel her face heating. She couldn't believe he'd done something so stupid. "You--attacked them?"

Suddenly he whirled on her, that rage in his eyes again. "What was I supposed to do!"

She calmly answered his anger with patience. "You should not have blindly acted in ignorance of the consequences."

His face twisted in a snarl. "And let brutes like that have their way?"

"It may not seem this way to you, with your limited insight, but often interfering in such situations only exacerbates the problem for everyone involved. In this case, the Sith are now alerted to your presence, and likely this woman you defended will only be the worse for it." Bastila remembered these exact same lessons from when she was younger. She presented them just as she'd learned it, but it only seemed to make Namenlos angrier. "So you see, we often must wait when our minds tell us we must act. We cannot trust our minds to know the true nature of our circumstances."

Namenlos glared. "If we can't trust our minds, then what can we trust?"

"Wisdom," Bastila replied easily.

He gave her a blank look. "That's a bunch of nonsense."

Bastila fought her irritation and resolved just to let the matter drop. "We'll talk about this later. In the meantime, I do believe we have somewhere to be." With a gesture she prompted Carth to speak.

"Oh, right," he said, glancing between a datapad in his hands and the unassuming droid announcing itself as T3-M4. "I guess we'll try to take back ways as much as possible, avoid patrols."

"Wait, you're trying to get to the military base?" Mission asked.

Carth frowned. "Haven't you been paying attention?"

"Yeah I have, Carth!" Mission answered, irritated. She put her hands on her hips and scowled a little at Carth. "Why don't we just take some Lower City avenues if you want to stay out of sight? I can show you the best ways; I've been over near the base a bunch of times."

Carth was about to protest when Bastila silenced him. It seemed she'd again underestimated how helpful having the girl around could be. "Yes, please, could you show us?" she said quickly, hoping not to let the energetic Twi'lek girl and the short-tempered Republic man start butting heads. She somehow knew that was something to be avoided at all costs.

"Great." Mission gave the Wookiee Zaalbar a knowing glance. "Let's show 'em Liar's Tunnel, Big Z. That'll take us there in no time."

* * *

"Can't the droid do this any faster?" Bastila asked with irritation plain in her voice as T3-M4 chugged and whirred away at the secure door controls on the Lower City entrance to the military base.

Mission looked quizzically at the droid as it uttered as series of beeps and chimes that Namenlos marveled she was able to understand.

"Huh," Mission humphed, "he says be patient."

"Seems like sound advice," Carth grumbled. For once, Namenlos agreed with the man. He might not trust him, but Carth seemed as annoyed as the rest of them at Bastila's mood. She'd hardly even acknowledged them while they drudged about in the Lower City to get near to the Sith fortification, and Carth apparently wasn't much more well-disposed toward the Jedi than Namenlos was. Mission, as well, judging by her sarcastic tone.

Bastila had gone back to anxiously pacing, casting nervous glances back toward the street, despite Mission's assurances that this was a secret entrance only she knew about. Carth, as well, kept his blaster in hand as if he expected a surprise attack at any moment. Considering the last surprise attack that had befallen him, Namenlos was strangely grateful for the man's watchfulness, even if he was, in a very tangible way, an enemy.

Finally, the T3 droid chimed for completion of its task, and Namenlos heard an electronic whir as the locks on the bunker door disengaged. Thinking about the kind of people who would be inside, Namenlos felt his stomach turn.

"Mission," he said nervously, "maybe you should take T3 back to the apartment."

She shook her head vigorously. "No way, I'm going with you!"

His insides were fluttering at the prospect of facing an entire base full of Sith, but above all he didn't want her inside with him, didn't want her to face the same brutes. After all, she was just a kid, and he owed her besides.

"Just do it, please!" he pleaded. "You don't need to worry about me; Zaalbar will watch my back."

Mission scowled for a moment as if to say she didn't like being left out one bit, then sighed in resignation. "Alright, fine. Take care of him, Big Z," she said to the towering Wookiee, who nodded solemnly and said something in the Wookiee language. Namenlos had come to appreciate Zaalbar's unquestioning presence, even if he couldn't understand him and sometimes felt ill at ease with his size.

After Mission had left with the T3 droid, Bastila crooked an eyebrow at him. "That was a wise decision to send her away. This is no place for a child."

"Let's just do this," Namenlos growled. He didn't want Bastila's approval, he just wanted to start making his own decisions.

He clutched his knife in a white-knuckled hand as the door opened.


	9. White Knuckles

_IX. White Knuckles_

A pounding heart pumped adrenaline through every vein, his vision tunneling toward the closest target to him, the nearest receptacle on which he would unleash his wrath. As Carth beside him began the slow process of aiming his blaster pistols, Namenlos was already surging forward, drawing his razor-sharp knife from its sheath on his forearm.

He was upon the silver-armored Sith soldier before Carth had brought his weapons to bear, and long before the Sith could react to his snarling, indomitable charge. As he hit, he slashed the deadly edge of his knife into the seam at the Sith's shoulder, where the armor couldn't protect him. Muscles parted, tendons ruptured, ligaments snapped beneath blade, the Sith's arm became unhinged as he screamed and fell backward as the rest of Namenlos' body crashed into him.

Two more Sith melded into the blood-red haze of his vision as the first target slid to the ground, immaterial. Lashing out with all his frustration, his rage, all his pent-up fury at his own helplessness and inability to safeguard the sovereignty of his own life, he smashed the hilt-end of his knife into the crotch of one of the Sith leaping for him, crushing through weak armor plate and flooring the unfortunate.

The second Sith drew a sword, swung madly at Namenlos, who jumped back out of range of the blade, his battle rage crystallizing into pure focus of what he needed to do in order to stay alive. His knife was no protection against the longer blade of the sword, so he ducked and dodged, infuriated that he was on the defensive.

Suddenly, a hail of red blaster bolts put down the Sith before he could connect with his longer blade. Namenlos looked back to see Carth taking crack shots at the Sith security team now swarming the hall. Diving to the floor, he scooped up the Sith sword in his hands as he ducked across Carth's line of fire.

Two Sith crossed his path; he didn't hesitate, feinted to one side and ran them both through with a single thrust. The hardened point cracking through armored joints, h could hear the surprised gurgle of their last breaths from behind their opaque masks as he spun away to meet the next attack.

The sword in his hands felt like a natural extension of his body; he felt knew exactly how to direct its deadly edge to the greatest effect, how to reap the most cut for his swing, chop, or thrust. The feeling of such complete and utter control over the blade was tremendously liberating, a revelation of lethal power.

A door opened to his left, revealing a menacing, black-clad, masked figure wielding a double-bladed sword. Carth took a few shots, but his blaster fire was turned aside by nothing more than a warding hand. Bastila shouted a warning, but Namenlos already knew that this was a man of dangerous power.

His opponent twirled his dual-sword and beckoned. Namenlos growled his acceptance of the man's challenge and leaped forward.

His first blow was easily parried by his adversary. As he pulled back, he twisted his body and launched a kick at the man's torso, which was also blocked by a concerted downward chop of his forearm. As his body completed its movement, Namenlos struck again with his sword, forcing the man into a blade-lock. Grunts of exertion hissed past his teeth as Namenlos leaned in close for leverage, bringing his face inches from his opponent's. In the narrow slit of the man's cloth mask, Namenlos saw eyes which mirrored the set determination in his own

He was intrigued by the warrior spirit in his adversary, and if he hadn't been engaged in a battle for his life, he would have been enraptured by the mix of serenity and passion in the man's eyes, evidences of powerful and dangerous contradictions of the soul.

A sudden powerful shove caught him off guard, and Namenlos found himself at the mercy of the strange masked man. His sword was knocked clear; he would never reach it before his adversary brought the razor point of his own sword down on his body. Namenlos lurched forward anyway, going for the elusive hilt of the sword. He could hear the whistle of the double-sword as it rushed through the air to cut him open, anticipated the searing pain of it slicing him clean to his bones.

He couldn't move fast enough. Every particle of air seemed only obstructing him, slowing him down, keeping him locked in place so the man's sword could do its work.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour, time ticked away another imperceptible instant and he completed his lunge, made contact with the leather grip of his sword, and began twisting his body around to bring the edge to bear for a parry.

His opponent's sword wasn't where he expected it to be. It hadn't impaled him yet, hadn't even reached him yet. Namenlos looked up in surprise.

The black-clad, masked man lay on the ground, wheezing a last breath and vainly clutching his chest, which was split wide by a smoking gash. Bastila stood over him, a glowing double-bladed sword held in her own hands.

Grateful though he was for not being dead, the sight of those amber blades in Bastila's hands sent a ripple of panic through Namenlos; not memory, but something baser, more primal. The yellow glow of her sword meant something terrible to him, but he didn't know what.

Still clutching the hilt of his sword, Namenlos got to his feet. Looking around, surveying the carnage, he realized the Sith were all dead. Slumped on the ground either in pools of blood, covered in charred black blaster marks, or in several smoking pieces, Sith corpses were everywhere. Some were silver- and red-armored soldiers, but others were technicians and other personnel in gray uniforms. Each of these had mortal sword wounds, wounds from his own blade. Namenlos wondered if they were attacking him, or had merely been in the way as he went after the stronger ones. Nevertheless, he couldn't summon any pity for any of them; after witnessing the kind of terror they inflicted on the innocents it was hard for him to think of them as anything but monsters.

Bastila deactivated her glowing sword, the twin amber blades retracting into the hilt with a sharp hissing sound. "Lock the doors, Carth," she ordered.

The Republic man was quick to comply, getting to work immediately on a console directly beside the door they'd entered. It slid shut obediently, closing off access from the hallway and, presumably, cutting off further Sith reinforcements.

"Can you access the building's schematics from here, Carth?" Bastila asked.

He shrugged. "I can try."

"Good. In the meantime, I'm going to take a look around."

"Be my guest."

More out of curiosity than anything else, Namenlos watched Bastila as she prowled about the room, checking any of the doors and briefly perusing several computer terminals. The place was rather large, with a ceiling easily twice as high than that of the hallway outside. There appeared to be some sort of airlock system along one wall, some equipment lockers beyond, and more terminals at a large station in the center of the room, festooned with lights and gauges of all sorts. Most of the uniformed technicians were slumped around this station, apparently where they had been working.

The place looked like a laboratory of some sort, which made the black-clad warrior dead at Namenlos' feet look even more out of place.

"Who is he?" Namenlos asked, indicating the man whose chest had been split open by Bastila's laser sword.

She looked over to him. "He appears to be a Sith Acolyte; an apprentice not yet deemed worthy of carrying the title of full Sith. He hasn't even his lightsabre yet."

"Lightsabre?" he said quizzically.

She held up the hilt of her sword, nodded. "The weapon of a Jedi. It requires a certain level of mastery of the Force to be able to use one effectively. Otherwise, it is more of a danger to its wielder than his opponent. Even so, such evil knowledge as has been imparted to men like this is harmful enough even without a lightsabre."

"So these Sith, they use the Force?"

Her countenance darkened. "They use the Dark Side of the Force."

It was his turn to furrow his brow. "The Dark Side?"

Instead of answering, Bastila waved a hand to dismiss the subject. "We can discuss these things at further length when we reach the Enclave."

Rather than be frustrated by her evasiveness, Namenlos let the conversation slide. He nudged the corpse below with his foot. "I wonder what he's doing here."

Bastila shrugged. "He was probably just passing through this room on his way somewhere else in this place." She narrowed her eyes and looked over at Carth. "On that note; Carth, have you had any success?"

Carth grunted. "Almost there. Just let me disable a few more systems." A minute later he exclaimed, "Got it! Let's go."

* * *

The room beyond the Sith lab appeared to be a detention block of some sort, judging by the row of force-cages along the wall. The stark utilitarianism of the place, the dull tiles of the floor, the plain white walls, and the homogeneous lighting suggested it was also an interrogation room. As Carth scanned the area with his blasters at the ready, he spotted a force-cage at the very end of the room that was active and occupied.

"Hello? Who's there?" the prisoner called out at the sound of the opening door.

"What's your name?" Carth asked cautiously. In his experience, if someone was locked up, even if it was in the enemy's camp, there was usually a reason.

"Janos, Janos Merdula," the prisoner answered. "Them accursed Sith threw me in here just for pulling a profit. Said I wasn't minding my duties to my fellow citizens just for keeping some cash to get food on the table and not paying their million and one fees. I tell you, we royally screwed ourselves letting them Sith come and set up shop."

As Janos continued babbling, Carth approached carefully, placing himself in front of Bastila and her prisoner Namenlos. It wasn't that he particularly cared about the well-being of either of them aside from his blasted duties--the act of placing himself at point was just instinctual to him. Carth wanted to be the first able to respond to any threats that should appear; he didn't want to have to rely on Bastila to react in case of some unexpected attack or ambush or any one of a thousand different scenarios in his mind.

As he got closer to the force-cage, he was eventually able to see that Janos was a tough, lean Togruta man wearing grimy trousers and a work jacket stained with suspicious colors. Carth wondered if he actually could smell the acrid odor of spice wafting from the prisoner, or if he was just imagining that scents could pass through the energy field of the cage and ever even reach his nose. He wondered just what kind of "profit" this man Janos had been getting. Certainly nothing savory, that was for sure. He silently applauded the Sith for taking such a man off the streets; even if he hated them, they did occasionally make the right decisions.

"Please, can you let me out? I saw the guards rush off, I guess to get you, but it looks like you can take care of yourselves. Let me out?"

Before Bastila overruled him, insisted they free the man, Carth answered with a firm "No."

"Wha--You're kidding, right?" Janos' face reflected disbelief.

"Carth..." Bastila started ominously.

He shook his head for emphasis. "I said no. You're staying right there, pal. We can't trust you."

Janos laughed nervously. "Me? Of course you can trust--"

"No we can't!" Carth exploded. "I hate the Sith, but me and them are on the same page about keeping _junkies_ off the street!" He'd seen his share of junkies in his day, as well as the terrible ruin they and their drugs brought on families. Anyone stupid enough to start jacking up on spice deserved to be locked up, and anyone selling the stuff deserved to be put to death. The subject was almost too painful for him to contemplate.

Janos' expression changed to one of genuine panic. "But you--you don't know what you're talking about," he sputtered.

"Don't tell me what I do or don't know," Carth growled. "I know exactly what I'm talking about. I know all the warning signs, and I darn well know how to spot a dealer." He couldn't get that old mental image of a poor overdosed kid out of his mind, just an eighteen-year-old, killed by someone like this.

Carth clenched his fist. "We don't have time for this."

Bastila was slightly pale. "Yes, we should leave immediately."

"Hey!" Janos yelled. "You can't just leave me here! What about--"

Carth had had enough from the junkie; the man was dead anyway for the choices he'd already made. He knew exactly what to do. It took only a few keystrokes on the control pad to overload the active force-cage. Janos dropped without a sound as thousands of volts surged through his body all at once, frying his brain in an instant.

The galaxy was now short one junkie, and Carth couldn't be happier.

Bastila looked stricken but said nothing.

Carth turned away. "Alright, let's--"

Before he could finish the sentence, he was violently tackled from behind, slammed up against the wall by a hissing, furious Namenlos. He could feel the Cathar's sharp nails digging into his shoulders through the jacket. His head ricocheted painfully off the hard wall as Namenlos throttled him back and forth, livid with fury.

"You filthy, lying murderer!" the Cathar screamed in his face.

Thankfully, for Carth, before Namenlos could get his hands around his throat, Bastila quickly stepped up to him and put two fingers to the side of the collar around his neck. The Cathar instantly let go and staggered back several feet, hissing sharply.

"Thanks," Carth muttered to Bastila, who responded with a curt nod.

After a minute, Namenlos looked back up, clutching his neck. His eyes were blazing hatred. "Murdering son of a schutta!" he snarled. "What'd you do that for? He was no threat to you."

"The man was a _dealer_!" Carth shot back. "Do you know how many lives dealers ruin? Probably a lot more than most Sith. Their drugs do in more Republic citizens each year than have been lost in this whole rotten war. Families torn apart, lives ruined, all for their blasted drugs." Carth swallowed down the bitter memories.

Namenlos' glare did not falter, he looked unfazed even despite Bastila's demonstration of her control in getting him to back off. Carth wasn't sure he had a lot of faith in Bastila's supposed control either. His hand hovered close to his blaster just in case.

"You didn't know that," he hissed. "You saw that he didn't look like you and you judged him for it. You're no better than the Sith."

"Don't give me that bantha-crap! I know dealers when I see them. I should, too--I lost my son to one!" Carth hated having that memory dredged up by this inhuman madman who couldn't possibly understand what it had been like for him.

"You saw what you wanted to see. You murdered him over an _assumption!_ He could have been no different than me."

"Oh, right, you," Carth scoffed, now too angry to stop his own tirade. "You. I lost my ship and lot of good people just to come after you. Now I'm starting to think it wasn't worth it, that this has been a rotten Jedi bait-and-switch worth a lot less than its cost in Republic lives."

"You're right," Namenlos snarled. "You should have left me alone."

"Both of you, that is enough!" Bastila chided, putting herself between the two of them.

Carth glared back at the Cathar. "This isn't over."

"Never," Namenlos vowed.

Carth turned away. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

Juhani's eyes snapped open as she felt the beast die. A sympathetic connection she'd never realized was there alerted her to the creature's death, one of her only friends in the world. A sudden coldness gripped her heart, her breath came in ragged gasps. She'd never felt what death was like, not like this.

She tried to tell herself the Kath hound could simply have fallen and broken its neck, but the instant it entered her mind she knew it was a lie. It had been deliberately killed. The thought of what that could mean caused her to unconsciously reach into the Force for comfort for just the slightest of instants before she withdrew herself speedily. Already she could sense the others gathering to her, the creatures who kept her company in her seclusion. Kath hounds and horned bulls came through the trees of the grove to group around her, offering their company and support. Before she could think to try to send them away, the comfort of their presence overrode her desire to sacrifice herself for them.

If she was to die, she would not die alone--not alone, as she had lived. A Kath hound at her side purred its reassurance.

Juhani gulped and clutched her lightsabre as the Jedi she'd expected finally came into sight.

She frowned. There was only one. She had expected an entire team of dedicated hunters, but there was only old Nemo.

Nevertheless, she ignited her lightsabre, the same blade that had killed her master Quatra. She knew she could do this, she would not surrender her life.

"You shouldn't have come, Nemo," Juhani warned him. She was surprised by how even her voice was.

"Why are you hiding out here, Juhani?" Nemo asked. Her knees nearly buckled at the understanding in his voice. How could he be here to kill her?

He was trying to deceive her, get her to lower her guard, and then he would strike. Juhani strengthened her resolve. "You killed one of my friends," she said flatly, again surprised by the strength of her own voice.

A look of concern passed over Nemo's wizened face. "The hounds are dangerous now, Juhani. They have been attacking settlers. They have never done that before." He frowned at seeing all the creatures assembled around her. "What have you done to them?"

For an instant, Juhani felt exultant in her own power, that to which only she could lay claim. She let the moment pass. "How could you know what is it like to feel as I feel? You will never feel loneliness or despair. You are wordlessly accepted, while I am not!" She gritted her teeth against the bitter tears that threatened. "I am not good enough for you, not good enough to be a Jedi, so I have fallen to the Dark Side!"

Nemo shook his head sadly. "I don't believe that of you, Juhani. You were always--"

"I have fallen! You think you know me but you don't!" she shrieked. "Enough talk, old man, you know the truth. That is why you are here. Defend yourself, or I will be your doom for coming here!"

Screaming with all her hurt, all her lonely desolation, she leaped for him. Nemo quickly brought his own green lightsabre to hand and turned aside her blow.

"Don't do this, Juhani. Don't do this to yourself," he said as she struck again, ineffectually.

"You did this to me!" Juhani screamed. "You! Every one of you did this!"

She struck again, but once more he easily parried her blade. Juhani was beginning to realize her turbulent emotions were only impairing her. She felt like a child again, a helpless child with no business playing at adults' games. When Nemo disarmed her with a single deft stroke of his sabre, she broke down crying with the futility of it all.

Juhani stumbled backward, trying to think, to stall, to do _something_, while Nemo continued to approach her slowly. He lowered his lightsabre. "Not everything is as you think, Juhani," he said cautiously. "You could come back with me. The Council would--"  
"No!" Her head snapped back up. She could hear the growls of her friends in the trees as she clenched her fists and screamed her defiance at the old Jedi Master. The power of it reverberated in the air around her, a sympathetic bubble of intangible Force energy radiating out from her.

Suddenly, one of the Kath hounds leaped for Nemo, snarling. Even as he was bringing his lightsabre around in a cutting chop to bring down the hound, several more broke into a run and threw themselves at him. Feeling the creature's death only fed more power into the bubble around Juhani, enticing more hounds to come and defend her.

As one, the pack of snarling beasts jumped on the Jedi, and despite his weapon, she instantly knew he could not survive; there were too many hounds. Nemo turned to desperation as he was assaulted from all sides by his rabid attackers, but even that was not going to be enough. Snapping jaws and razor teeth seized his clothes, ripped into limbs. Nemo started screaming in pain.

"No! No, no, no!" Horrified, powerless to stop what was happening, Juhani sank to her knees, clutching her head and mumbling "no" over and over again until she was too numb to even recognize the saliva hanging from her open mouth or the blood on her scalp from her sharp nails scraping across skin.

Once Nemo's screams had ceased, the Kath hounds scattered in confusion, slinking around for a few moments before darting back into the shadow of the trees, leaving his mangled corpse in the open, accusing her with lifeless eyes. Juhani kept expecting - kept hoping - that he would get up, tell her it was all just another Jedi test, another cruel deception. But he didn't. He didn't move.

She'd killed Quatra, now she'd killed Nemo. Juhani now knew there was no hope for her.

* * *

Bastila was painfully aware of the pungent odor of smoking lightsabre wounds from the multitude of charred bodies that stretched down the hall they'd come. Other corpses were blackened from blaster burns on their pristine silver armor, or stained by smears of blood spilled by a furious sword. The metallic, coppery tang of blood was thick in the air as well, threatening to make her gag; it dripped freely from the tip of Namenlos' sword, trailing crimson droplets on patches of the white tile not yet defiled by death.

Things had gotten quite desperate. Being too preoccupied with growling over his confrontation with the livid Cathar, Carth had mistakenly left an avenue unsealed on their way through the Sith base, allowing security teams to hem them in from three sides. His contingencies of sealed passageways cutting off Sith reinforcements were failing, flooding the halls with angry Sith who pinned them down well away from their objective, the governor's chambers.

For several minutes, the world was ruled by pure mayhem. Bastila's twin amber blades were more than occupied turning aside the hails of blaster fire from Sith riflemen, and all her attention was focused on merely staying alive. She wasn't able to track Namenlos through much of the battle, but after the fact she could see quite clearly the trail of destruction he left in his wake.

Even with the intellectual and emotional core of his mind gone, obliterated, he had still retained much of his proficiency with the edged blade. Muscles retained their memory of the countless hours he'd spent his life over in learning the most artful, esoteric forms of lightsabre combat, and their baser roots, the blunt and straightforward styles of swordplay whose only purpose was for dealing death quickly with as little expenditure of energy as possible.

Much of that knowledge was still intrinsic to him, imprinted not on his brain but his very limbs themselves. The sword stained with the blood of tens of Sith soldiers attested to the depths of his rage and the level of his commitment to his own life.

Bastila shuddered a little, toying with her diaphanous mental connection to Revan's collar to reassure herself.

In the end, between Zaalbar's roaring Wookiee bowcaster, her skill with the lightsabre, and some last-minute acts of desperation on Carth's part, they'd managed to drive back the relentless tide. Carth had mumbled something about killing half the Sith garrison in the process. Bastila wasn't sure she could disagree with that assessment.

She was now acutely aware of how little time there was left. The Sith could be vectoring forces from the blockade fleet in orbit if they felt the need. If not, there would still be ground troops rushing to respond to the emergency. If ever time was of the essence, it was now. She hurried her pace.

"How close are we, Carth?" she asked, peering nervously at the sealed doors to either side of the hallway, ill at ease.

The Republic officer briefly consulted a datapad. "Should be just another few hundred--" He stopped, looking up.

They all came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the man ahead of them. Bastila's heart raced, she remembered this man's face; he was the one from the hologram, the one who'd killed Tarisian Prime Minister Halrand Jynn right before her eyes. His head was shaven, probably in tribute to the great Darth Malak, even his eyebrows had been sheared away, leaving only the cold, cruel stare of a predator on his face. There seemed to be no redeeming qualities that even identified him as human, as if somehow, without altering his appearance, he had changed himself into something less than a man. His stone-like blue eyes glared at her without a soul, hate and loathing of the good the only thing driving his mind.

Namenlos was already moving when the Sith governor raised his hands. Bastila flicked on her lightsabre in preparation of deflecting whatever dark power he thought to throw at her. She was anticipating a blast of lightning, a thundering howl of conjured flame, or a crushing net of air sent to rip her limb from limb.

She was completely unprepared for the paralysis field he cast at her and the others.

Leaping forward, Namenlos was able to duck to the side and escape the full effects of the poisonous power, but Bastila, Carth, and Zaalbar were all hit full force. Carth toppled as he lost control of his muscles in the act of raising his blasters, Bastila and Zaalbar were frozen in place, weapons still clutched in their hands but useless.

Bastila panicked. She couldn't move a limb, couldn't break the cement-like lock on her muscles to so much as twitch a finger. Even just breathing and moving her eyes was difficult. Encased in the Sith's foul power, she was utterly helpless, completely at the mercy of the merciless governor. She knew she was going to die, or worse, be presented as a prize for Malak. Both alternatives scared her like she'd never been scared before.

She desperately didn't want to die, and couldn't make herself stop staring forward at her doom.

Smiling his cruel smile, the Sith governor was approaching her slowly, savoring his all-too-easy victory, when the ragged figure of Namenlos and his bloody sword blocked his path.

A look of bemusement came over the Sith's face. "Worthless fool," he muttered, and produced a glittering sword of his own--the same as Bastila had seen impale Prime Minister Jynn.

The Sith swung with released fury, intending to cleave the interfering Cathar's head from his body. Quick as his opponent, Namenlos brought his blade up in a swift block, growling as he pushed forward against the Sith's strength. The governor stepped back out of the lock and made an undercut straight for the ribs, but Namenlos shoved the blade aside and launched a strike of his own, yelling as his sword whistled through the air.

Side-stepping and parrying, the governor avoided the lunge and held Namenlos at bay, content to circle. "You are strong in the Force, nameless one," he said, beckoning. Namenlos only growled in reply.

As they clashed again, Bastila thought she could feel the strangling grasp on her limbs weakening. Newfound hope flooded through her. She could beat this, nothing was impossible. Diverting her mind away from her doomsaying thoughts, she focused on probing the web around her, looking for the crack in its weave that would allow her to unravel it. She tried not to think of how terrifying not being able to move was.

"You waste yourself defending these doomed Jedi, nameless one," the governor taunted as he unleashed a series of intimidating moves intended to overpower the opponent. Being smaller and more agile, Namenlos used his size and weight to his own advantage and the Sith continued to lunge for him, tiring himself out.

"You have great darkness within you; you could be the greatest Sith who has ever lived! Give up this foolish loyalty to the Jedi. Embrace the Dark Side! Break their chains!"

Still, he did not respond to the Sith's words. Bastila worked furiously at her invisible bonds. She could almost feel the greasy tendrils encasing her, could almost begin working to unwrap them.

"Surrender to the darkness!" the Sith commanded.

Finally, Namenlos broke his silence. He snarled in fury, striking with more force and passion than he'd yet displayed. Even the Sith governor seemed unprepared for the level of ferocity the Cathar had unleashed, and was forced back by the power of the assault.

Suddenly, Bastila felt the paralysis field break, the Sith having to divert his concentration solely to the battle at hand. She, Zaalbar, and Carth were free from its dark clutches.

She started to move, only to fall flat on her face, belatedly realizing her muscles were drained. Frantic it took her several seconds more to regain control of herself and work on getting motion back in her limbs. She wondered if this was how Namenlos had felt when she snapped the collar around his neck.

The metallic ringing of the two combatants' swords filled her ears like the loudest roar she'd ever heard.

Finally, after a minute, seeming to her like hours, she was able to find her feet, but Carth and Zaalbar were still down. She looked down the hall and saw to her consternation that Namenlos had lost his sword, was on his knees bleeding and glaring up at the vindictive Sith governor.

"Such a waste of talent," the ruthless Sith clucked. "Who ever thought such potential could be found on this backwater?" He brought his sword up to deliver the killing blow.

Bastila knew she had to do something--fast.

Suddenly, he faltered, disbelief filling his features. "Impossible!" the Sith breathed. "He is dead. R--"

Bastila acted. She hurled her lightsabre with all her might, and was rewarded by the spinning amber blades neatly and punctually severing the governor's neck before he could utter his realization.

Namenlos keeled over on his side, breathing in palpable relief. Bastila panted with relief of her own at how close the governor had come to revealing to Revan the truth. When she looked back, Carth and Zaalbar were beginning to get to their feet.

"He's dead," she said matter-of-factly. "Hurry, let us get what we came for and leave. I fear it has taken us far too long."


	10. Strange Company

_Strange Company_

"I am warning you, Namenlos; this is very important, you will have to keep your passions under control or I will be forced to do it for you, and you know I have no wish to do so."

Namenlos could hear Bastila talking, but he wasn't really paying attention. He felt like he'd heard her say this exact same thing many times over, so he didn't assign any special significance to it this time either.

"Are we clear?" she pressed.

Responding to her with a sour grunt, Namenlos turned to shoot a glare back at Carth. Neither man had forgotten their confrontation earlier, and wouldn't soon. Namenlos intended never to forget that abhorrent display of judgmentalism. And once he was free, he would make Carth pay.

Getting free, however, was a thing still far out of reach. As little as he trusted Bastila, he was now more aware of the kind of trouble he was in on Taris. His first exposures to the Sith seemed to confirm what Bastila initially told him. As much as he hated having been ripped from the life he'd known, pitiful though it was, it was done now and there was no going back, not now that the Sith were aware of him.

He didn't have to be an expert in such things to be able to see the stunned recognition in the eyes of the Sith governor just before Bastila had killed him. He had been on the verge of revealing something Bastila didn't want him to know, something Namenlos instinctively knew had marked him. By virtue of something beyond his comprehension, he was now as much a target as Bastila claimed she was.

This knowledge only made him hunger all the more for the life he knew had once been his, that knowledge to safeguard his own liberty.

Once more the garish lights and sounds of the cantina filled his field of view. Finished with their errand into the Sith base, they were bringing Ordo the transponder codes that would allow their as-yet-unacquired ship to slip by the Sith blockade he testified was hanging in orbit above the planet, imposing a strict lockdown.

He hated trusting this much in strangers. He hated even more that he had to trust a butcher of his people with his life.

Ordo was smirking confidently when he saw them approach, sipping leisurely at a foaming glass of some exotic beer. Before he even spoke a word, Namenlos felt his blood heat with anger.

"The triumphant return, is it? I trust you have what we're after?"

"Yes," Bastila replied. "Now it is your turn to live up to our bargain."

Ordo gestured amiably with his brawny hands. "Don't sweat it, sister, I want off Taris as much as you do." His gaze played over the three of them. He frowned. "There were more of you before."

"We're holding some options in reserve, if you don't mind," Carth responded crossly.

Ordo shrugged. "Whatever. Doesn't really matter, I can only take one of you anyway."

"What!" Bastila exclaimed, her temper rising. "You gave your word!"

"Into Davik's place, cool it," Ordo clarified. "That's how he works; one eager prospect at a time. He'll know something's up if I try to bring you all in at the same time, and I'm sure after your little field trip you're not looking forward to trying to storm another whole complex by your lonesome." The Mandalorian shook his head. "No, I'll take you of you in, make up some story he'll buy, bypass most of the security until we get to the hangar. I'll get the ship, come back and pick you up."

Bastila crossed her arms. "What's to stop you from simply taking the ship and leaving on your own, now that you have everything you need?"

"There would be no honor in such a cowardly act," Ordo replied simply.

Namenlos opened his mouth to respond to the Mandalorian's statement, but to his surprise found no words coming out. He glared anew at Bastila. She wouldn't even trust him far enough to let him speak.

He wanted the accursed collar _off_.

"What are you talking about honor?" Carth scoffed. "You're working for Davik, what does that say about your honor?"

"Fine; you can keep the transponder codes as insurance if you want," Ordo offered. "I guarantee I'm not going anywhere without them. I don't fancy five minutes of freedom just to get blown up."

Namenlos could see Bastila visibly relax. "I--suppose you have a point. Very well, then. I will go."

Ordo waggled a finger at her. "Ah-ah-ah, not so fast, little missy. We have to talk about this first. Davik has, shall we say, very specific uses for women on his estate, if you know what I mean. It's fine with me if you want to show a little ass - might do your attitude some good - and half the people here would be willing to make you up like the finest whore this side of--"

"Enough, Mandalorian!" Bastila snapped, her cheeks reddening. "I see your point."

"Plus, I have to say you're a bit recognizable, don't you think? The entire point of this is stealth, and things are going to go south real quick once someone recognizes Dantooine's proudest little daughter." Ordo folded his arms as he sat back, pondering. "Sorry, flyboy, same deal. I don't know how much you get out these days, but I see your face on the vids every now and then when you Republic people manage to get something done on the battlefield. No offense, but you're not coming either."

"Well, then who?" Bastila asked, flustered. Ordo didn't say anything.

The blood drained from Bastila's face. "Surely not..."

"Yep, sister, that's who I mean."

"But he's--"

"He's the only one of you I'm taking anywhere near Davik's base," Ordo declared. "I don't plan on getting myself killed before I even get close to the ship, and that means neither of your are coming with me. That means it's gonna be your Cathar pal, here."

Namenlos bristled. He didn't want anything more to do with the Mandalorian slime. He wished he could speak, so he could tell Ordo how much he despised him.

Bastila was about to protest further when the Mandalorian put his fist down. "This is non-negotiable, princess; you want off this planet, we're doing this my way."

She twitched, as if trying to think of any way she could back out of the agreement. Finding none, she answered tersely, "Very well."

"Good," Ordo grunted. He promptly started off. "Come on, then. We're going."

Namenlos looked to Bastila expectantly. She waved a hand surreptitiously and he felt his voice return.

"You mustn't lose this chance, Namenlos," she told him.

"Like he said; I don't fancy getting killed because I screwed up," he dismissed, going after Canderous.

Bastila caught his arm for a second, turning him back to face her. "Namenlos, I--I'm sorry."

He looked away. "Sorry?"

"I'm sorry for what I'm doing to you."

Namenlos broke her grip. "No, I don't think you are. I'm going now."

* * *

"So what's your plan?"

Canderous grunted as the first words left the mouth of the Cathar since leaving the cantina. The man wasn't talkative, neither was he, and so they'd left it at that. Now that they were getting close to Davik's estate, his forced companion was scoping out the battlefield.

"You got a name?" he asked.

The Cathar gave him a sour look. "_Ich bin namenlos_," he hissed.

Canderous shrugged. "Namenlos, huh, that'll do. You have a weapon?"

Namenlos held up his arm, revealing a knife strapped in a makeshift sheath to his forearm. He twisted his face. "You need something better than that," Canderous pronounced. He tossed him a medium-bore blaster pistol as he walked. The Cathar caught his underhanded throw easily.

"Just follow my lead if you want to stay alive," Canderous explained. "He trusts me; I've been his enforcer for years. But he doesn't know you, so he's going to be a lot more careful even with me around to 'vouch' for you. He's got other goons to call on if he thinks things are going to go bad. So don't do anything stupid before I do. I'll know when to light the place up--I don't want you jumping the gun and getting us both killed. Are you clear on that?"

Still fingering the gun in his hands, Namenlos turned a glare to him. "I wait to start shooting until you do."

"Look here, we can do this my way or forget about it. I don't like you and you don't like me; I get that, but we both have something to gain here. Mandalore praises flexibility and inventiveness not just in combat--"

"Don't tell me what your false god expects of you," the Cathar snarled. "You like to murder because it strokes your ego. I don't trust you farther than your wish to get off this planet. After that, you're fair game."

Canderous gritted his teeth in answer to the challenge. "We're at agreement, then. Now shut up and let's do this."

The first few sets of guards he recognized, and they recognized him, letting him pass without a second glance, his company notwithstanding--he sometimes brought prospectives in to see the man who ran it all, it wasn't that unusual a sight. Canderous cracked a broken-toothed grin at some of the green-faced rookies who still quaked whenever he passed. He was amused by their fear.

Some of his first jobs for Davik had been to root out the weak links in his personal guard; a job that earned him an unparalleled reputation as a team-killer. Men often bent over backwards not to be assigned to his units, as he was also known to go through accomplices quite frequently while on missions for Davik. His Mandalorian blood craved the heavy jobs, the ones requiring the most violence, not merely intimidation and theatrics. More often than not, this meant a due deal of bloodshed and carnage with people who ought to know a lot better than to get on the bad side of the Exchange.

But Davik had fewer and fewer of those types of problems lately, and he was stuck toting around his guns simply for show, finding less opportunities to awaken his battle rage. If the jobs required violence, it was usually a simple matter of pulling the trigger and counting the bodies; nothing worthy of his warrior spirit.

All that was about to change. Canderous clutched the grip of his heavy automatic rifle in cold anticipation, awaiting the rush of exhilaration when he locked wills with a worthy adversary. He wouldn't half mind facing off against his Cathar companion; a man whom he had little doubt was more than a competent warrior in his own right. But that could come later, after Taris and Davik were history and he again had the galaxy before him.

Maybe then he could find someone to fight.

Entering the estate, Canderous was greeted by the ungainly sight of the vertically-challenged Calo Nord, Davik's new golden boy. The laughable excuse for a bounty hunter who went about dressed like a pilot for some comic novelty promotion that ran aerial stunt shows with antique transports, touting his 'elite' skills, had been getting the jobs that had once gone to Canderous; the difficult, the challenging, the worthy tasks.

With the bright blue overcoat, puffy white hat, and rotund nose sticking out from underneath a comical pair of opaque goggles, Calo Nord looked more like a midget taxi driver than the right hand man of Davik Kang himself.

Canderous had to remind himself that despite his appearances, the man had an impressive record to his name, and deserved a more realistic assessment, unbiased by his own personal opinion of the man. After all, to underestimate the opponent gave him the advantage; a tactic Calo obviously exploited. But still, there was no doubt in Canderous' mind that he could crush the whelp's throat with relative ease.

"What's this trash you're carrying, Canderous?" Calo asked snarkily. He sniffed with exaggerated gesticulation. "Whoo! Smells like rakghoul to me. Have you been mucking around in the sewers, Candy? Davik finally give you some real work?"

"Watch your mouth, Calo," Canderous retorted. "You know how Davik likes to stay connected with the lowers."

"So it's camouflage for the slummies," Calo answered thoughtfully. "I should have thought he'd have you scouting around for new garbage. What, especially after you iced our last few compentents. You have a problematic trigger finger, Ordo," he taunted. "If you like I can remove it for you."

Canderous grinned despite himself. He was really going to enjoy wringing this weasel's neck. "Keep talking like that and Davik's gonna have to find himself a new favorite pet."

Calo Nord grimaced. "So, taking the new crop to see the man?"

"You know procedure, Calo."

"Tell you what, I'll come with you, make sure everything goes smoothly. Who knows--you might even need someone to put a hole in his head for you, since I doubt you'd be quick enough." The squat little man mimed a quick draw of his lethal composite blasters, weapons that had been known to scorch clean through military-grade armor. Canderous envisioned Calo's head exploding like a ripe melon.

As the garishly-dressed bounty hunter joined the small group, Canderous could almost feel the tension building in Namenlos. He could tell he wasn't taking the "trash" talk lying down; he was furious, and getting angrier all the time.

Bad idea taking the Cathar.

But all he had to do was follow the plan. Either way, Canderous knew things were going to get interesting.

Calo put one of his composite blasters to the Cathar's head, sneering. "So, you think you're good enough to work for the Exchange? With a face like that? What are you, some kind of how-not-to commercial for a personal hygiene product?"

"You should know," Namenlos growled without turning his head as he walked, "I am going to kill you."

"Well, don't they all say that," Calo scoffed.

"He's in close with a number of swoop gangs, Calo," Canderous lied. "He'll be useful enough to Davik."

"Hmph," Calo mumbled, putting his blaster away. "Maybe once he's properly trained. It's your ass, you know, Canderous. I'll watch this one not holding my breath."

"Just shut up, Calo. Let's find Davik."

As per usual, the crime lord in question could be found by the trail of increasingly-voluptuous, decreasingly-clothed slave girls. Perched on his lordly seat amid the gaggle of barely-dressed prostitutes, Davik Kang awaited them.

"What's this you've got there, Canderous? Scouting for new partners already?"

"You know me, Davik; rookies don't tend to last. He's a new acquisition," Canderous said, presenting the dirty, shrouded, nameless Cathar scowling from behind dark dreadlocks.

Davik leaned forward apprehensively. "An alien," he pronounced suspiciously.

Namenlos visibly tensed. Canderous had expected at least this much. "He's got good connections with the gangs in the Lower City. He's my number one pick, I'd strongly urge you to at least consider him for a position as confidential informant. I know how the Exchange feels about aliens, but in this instance, I believe it's a good investment."

"Hmm," Davik brooded. He turned his expectant stare to the Cathar. "What is your name?"

"Kurkev," Namenlos responded flawlessly, without second's pause. "Vasili Kurkev. My family immigrated here after the massacre."

Alarms started going off in Canderous' head. Making up a background story for him was not part of the plan. Things were never supposed to go that far. All they needed was for Davik to start in with his own background check to give them the time to wander about his base and spring the ship.

Namenlos was making up his own plan.

Davik waved the whole issue away. "I will, of course, do my own research into your history. That is, if I decide Canderous' recommendation is worth a follow up. For now--"

He was interrupted as suddenly the whole estate was rocked by a massive explosion from the street outside. Screams of terror rang out all throughout the room as another explosion, and another, and another, hit in successive concussion, filling the air with a terrible thunder.

"What in the bloody blazes was that?" Calo swore.

"I'll find out," Davik promised grimly. Another set of detonations shook the entire city block. "We'll have to continue this later, Canderous. I'm going to have the governor's ass for this."

Davik got to his feet, whores scattering before him, and began striding purposefully for the hall. Out of habit, Calo Nord started falling in behind the boss as Davik's personal guards started to move. For an instant, everyone's heads were turned. Canderous recognized the opening--a second too late.

Namenlos raised his blaster to the side of Davik's head and pulled the trigger, splattering the crime lord's brains all over the room.

Battle instincts taking over, Canderous dove for the Cathar and shoved him down to the floor as the security opened fire on them. As he was falling, the Mandalorian twisted his body around, freeing his massive rifle, and let loose a staccato burst from the barrel. Several of the hired Rodian guards were hit just as Canderous and Namenlos crashed to the floor. Rolling one way while the Cathar rolled in the opposite direction, they both opened fire with everything they had, scooting for cover as fast as they could.

Blaster bolts peppered the floor around Canderous. In a state of constant motion, he was staying one step ahead, firing his own weapon with intensity. His shoulder was numb from the battering recoil, his finger clamped on the trigger. Shots went everywhere; some hit, some missed, and nothing in his zone of fire was even remotely safe.

Davik's hired Rodian guards were worse than drunken cantina rats with stun guns, and they fell to his rifle fire like ninepins.

Suddenly, a razor-sharp lance of energy sliced across Canderous' shoulder. He ducked down behind an overturned table as more of the deadly bolts whizzed past his head. He didn't need to guess who it had been.

"I know you too well, Candy," came the sneeringly derisive voice of Calo Nord. "I knew you'd bring some traitorous slime in to do your dirty work eventually. You actually snared a Cathar?" He whistled in mock astonishment. "One can hardly take a Cathar out in public. How could you manage, Candy? Well, it's no matter now. Thanks to you and your pet trash, Davik's out of the way, which means I'm all set to take over the Exchange here on--"

The man's arrogant speech was interrupted by a burst of blaster fire from across the room. Probably Namenlos.

Calo took a few volleys with his composite blasters just to make sure they both stayed down. The white hot projectiles passed clean through the steel table, proving just how useless it was as cover against him.

"You can whine and complain all you want. But that don't change the fact that I am now--"

Another series of massive explosions cut off the bounty hunter. In a brief moment of quiet between blasts, Canderous heard the high-pitched squeal, smelled the ozone, and knew he had only seconds.

"Hit the deck!" he screamed.

Just an instant later, the roof of the building exploded downward. The center of the chamber, where Davik's kingly throne had been, where Calo Nord was standing, erupted in a raging fireball. The force of the shock wave threw him back against the outer wall, driving the breath from his lungs as suddenly the air turned from blistering heat to a biting cold. Still expanding, the inferno burned ever hotter, while the air around it, being sucked from the rest of the room, rushed upward at sickening speed.

For the briefest of instant, it seemed like a tornado of fire had touched down on Davik's estate.

A second later, the conflagration collapsed on itself, leaving a smoldering crater in its center, the building quickly catching fire.

Canderous coughed as he got to his feet, trying to force air back into his lungs. The cold was quickly dissipating as the radiant heat from the new fires started superheating the air. The smell of smoke replaced the strong odor of ozone. He had only minutes to escape this part of the building.

"Cathar!" he yelled. "You still here?"

He was answered by a familiar cough. Looking over, he saw Namenlos crawl out from behind a half-melted pile of slag that had once been a storage locker. Sparing just the briefest of looks out the gaping crater in the roof of the building, seeing the ominous black shapes of vessels in low orbit dropping their deadly payloads, Canderous strode angrily over to his companion. He pulled the Cathar to his feet with a single hand gripping his jacket at the shoulder.

"Well that was a remarkably poor move," Canderous remarked venomously, shoving Namenlos away from him.

"I don't see any problems," the Cathar replied, pleased with himself. "Not anymore, at least."

Canderous massaged the stinging wound in his shoulder. "We've got new problems now." He pointed up at the newly-carved skylight in the ceiling. "That's your buddies the Sith. For whatever reason, I think we can assume they've run out of usefulness for this rotten planet; we have to be gone yesterday."

"I'm fine with that, but I'm going to kill that slime Calo Nord first."

"Forget it, he's already dead."

Namenlos scowled. "He was mine."

Canderous glared right back. "Well, Davik was mine and look how that turned out."

He could feel his finger closing ever tighter on the trigger of his rifle; realistically, he didn't need the Cathar anymore, although it would make the Jedi princess more difficult to deal with. Still, this didn't seem to be working anymore. Namenlos was a loose cannon.

To his surprise, Namenlos' scowl lessened. "Dead is dead, I guess. The next crime lord we run across is all yours, and the next murdering bigoted slime is mine."

Canderous grunted his agreement. Either he was going to kill Namenlos or beginning to like him.

Another set of explosions rumbled through the floor. Debris dropped down from above, large chunks of plaster and crete, as well as heavy steel beams, were starting to come loose; the roof was in danger of collapsing completely.

"Let's get going," Canderous urged. "We're running out of time."

"I hate fire," Namenlos muttered as they left hurriedly. Canderous thought it an odd thing to say.

* * *

The view out the side of the hangar was terrifying. Namenlos could hardly believe the magnitude of what his eyes were showing him, the sight of the inferno before him almost too intense, too pervasive, to comprehend.

All of Taris was burning.

Like a rain of deadly, boiling red hailstones, the energy bombs were falling in wide, sweeping strike patterns miles long over the spread of the city from horizon to horizon. Long swathes of flame engulfed entire blocks at a time, liquid fire flowing along the streets, scouring all life, leaving in its wake the blackened husks of machine and man alike. High in the sky, presiding over the orgy of such death and slaughter, circling as sharks eager for blood and flesh, the enormous hulls of the silver ships hung like remorseless executioners, impassive.

For a moment Namenlos just stood and stared, oblivious to everything going on around him. He was staring at the destruction of everything that had been his life. Most of it he hated, but it was all he had to call his own, all vanishing in fiery madness and senseless hate.

A single tear squeezed itself from his eye as he wrenched himself away from the apocalypse playing out before him. He had to get away.

Canderous was yelling to him from the ramp of the space freighter _Ebon Hawk_ that was docked inside the hangar. Painted an unattractive gray and maroon, the ship certainly didn't look like much, but it was more than a damp gutter for a bed or a cobweb-filled storage container for a home, and it was his way to escape. He no longer had anything on Taris; he had to escape.

Namenlos barely heard what Canderous was saying as he hurried aboard. Without waiting for the ramp to finish closing, the Mandalorian made for the cockpit. Namenlos followed in a daze.

"Better strap yourself in," Canderous warned. "I'm gonna take this thing up fast."

The cargo freighter lurched forward like a drunken Aqualish in response to Canderous' control, for a second causing Namenlos' stomach to turn, threatening nausea. Nose pitching forward, the ship began to plummet from the hanger toward the lower buildings beneath that had not yet been hit by the scorching fire from the ships above.

Seconds before impact, the _Hawk_'s engines kicked in fully and the ship roared forward, gaining lift and time for its gravitational thrusters to finish their automated startup procedures. Without the inertial damping systems engaged fully, Namenlos felt every pitch and roll of the ship in his bowels, and fought mightily to keep from being violently sick as Canderous brought the ship in great swaying movements to weave through the forest-like stand of burning, crumbling buildings.

His whole world was spinning, Namenlos tasted bile in the back of his throat. His shoulder ached, the flesh of his back stung like hot coals. Every beat of his heart threatened to send him spinning into oblivion, it was all he could do just to keep breathing. The dizziness, the nausea, the shock, the horror; the sheer stress of it all was turning all his bodily impulses into weapons against him.

For long minutes he just sat shaking, no longer even the slightest bit aware of what was happening around him.

Eventually the ship's movements became more gentle, the sharp turns and rolls softer, the acceleration less gut-wrenching. Gradually, his overwhelmed senses began reporting on his surroundings again. He heard Bastila's voice, then Canderous', and Carth's as well. He couldn't tell what they were saying yet, but he nevertheless latched tenaciously onto that tether to reality. His body was still nervously convulsing as he opened his eyes.

He saw the gathered swarm of the silver Sith ships buzzing about the world of Taris, and even from orbit he could see the raging fires on its surface.

"Are we in the clear, Carth?" he heard Bastila ask.

"Just picked off the last stragglers," Carth answered from somewhere Namenlos couldn't see. He realized it must have been over the ship's comm systems. "We're clear."

Bastila was pleased. "Excellent work, Carth. Mandalorian, set a course for Dantooine immediately."

"Whatever you say, sister," Canderous replied sarcastically. "I've got time."

As he leaned forward in his seat, Namenlos could still feel the nausea lurking. His head had never felt like it weighed so much. For a long time he simply sat and stared, even after the sight of the fiery perdition that had once been the city of Taris was replaced by the swirling white plasma of hyperspace.

He couldn't believe it was gone.

Still swaying dizzily, he unbuckled himself and got to his feet. Bastila looked over in alarm as he nearly crashed into the bulkhead at the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

Namenlos didn't even look back at her. He felt dead inside. "It looks like I'm going nowhere."

* * *

She found him in the darkest corner of the cargo hold, back to the wall, knees drawn up against his chest, shaking. Bastila could feel the emotions pouring off him like the white water cascading down mountain rapids. In the frantic moments after the Sith bombardment of Taris began, she'd likewise been hardly able to keep her calm about her. But whether it was the mental trauma of having just barely escaped destruction, or one of his mysterious, deeply-held motivations that was the cause of Namenlos' emotional storm she couldn't be sure.

His mind was both an open door and an impenetrable wall to her, obscuring its true framework with a torrent of incomplete fragments rushing outward and resonating in the Force.

The weight of guilt pressed down on her in the knowledge that it was her fault. She was the one who ruined his mind, even if she might have done it to save lives. It was for her sake that Malak made his decision to raze Taris. With such responsibility riding on her shoulders, it was her solemn duty not to fail in her task, and she'd done everything within her power to achieve that end.

But in spite of all she knew of him, in spite of everything she'd been taught, Bastila felt responsible for denying Revan his freedom.

However, she was still Jedi, still served the will of the Council, and their word was more important than her fickle thoughts and feelings, those obstacles to the greater wisdom of the Force. Revan's capture was in the service of the entire galaxy, and in his best interests besides. He would die if he didn't have the help of the Jedi, and if in providing such help they could learn more of the nature of Malak's power, then surely no price was too high.

His life had to be sacrificed to the greater good. There was no other way.

"Are you alright?" Bastila asked as she approached.

Namenlos said nothing.

Coming closer, she knelt down and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, turning his face out of the shadows with two fingers to his chin. She felt the streaks of his beard, coarse and stringy under her fingertips.

"I only want to help you, Namenlos," she said softly. "That is the truth."

Namenlos regarded her with a dead look on his face. He brushed long, tangled dreadlocks from his face, staring at her through glassy red eyes as he tried to turn away. The gruesome, jagged scar that ran from his forehead to his chin seemed to be doing the glaring for him.

Bastila could hardly bear to look at his face, remembering that cataclysmic battle as if it had happened only hours before.

He shrugged her hand from his shoulder, turning his weathered face back into the corner, the darkness. "I didn't want your help," came his reply. His deep voice had never before sounded so--damaged.

His refusal to accept the nobility of her intentions stung her like a slap in the face. "You know the headaches would have killed you!"

Ponderously, he turned back to face her. Bastila gulped down her own hurt in an instant, the look of fury and betrayal on his face silencing her as a harsh rebuke for her presumption.

"So would you."

Bastila opened her mouth, but no words came. It was true; she'd wanted to kill him, not on Taris, but before. If nothing else, he still remembered that.

She jumped when again his deep voice rang out, this time with a terrible authority. "Leave me!"


	11. Interlude

Interlude

_There was fire everywhere, the world around her self-destructing as she fought furiously with her adversary. Bodies were splayed on the floor all around, some missing limbs, mangled by hot blades, smoking from symmetrical stab wounds. The crash and roar filled her ears, along with the sounds of other blades clashing, her servants helping to battle off the invading meddlers._

_She could sense her opponent's strength weakening. Every strike of their blades told more and more the story that she was rapidly gaining the upper hand. Locking blades with her adversary, she pushed up close, trying to get a look at the face of her enemy, but the glare obscured her features._

_Nevertheless, she felt victory close at hand. With a rapid stroke of her lightsabre, she finally disarmed her opponent, who fell to her knees before her. Still she could not see her face, but it no longer mattered._

_She raised her hands to deliver the final, killing blow, to decapitate her faceless adversary in one quick sweeping motion, but was suddenly knocked off balance by the impact of a compressed ball of kinetic energy. Angrily getting to her feet, she heard a voice call to her._

_"You will not win, Revan!"_

_Suddenly, Bastila looked up and saw herself._

_Her mind spun, she took a step forward, trying to get a closer look at the apparition before her that wore her very own features, features she'd never imagined could possibly twist with such loathing, such naked hate._

_Bastila tried to raise her hand in placation, to reason with ghost of her that had gone beyond reason, but with the lightsabre still clutched firmly in her hand as if it had been cemented to her heavy gauntlet, she belatedly realized it would only further inflame the apparition._

_Before she could take another step, she was blinded with a pain the likes of which she'd never felt in her life, nor ever again would as long as she lived. She supposed she must have been screaming, but she was no longer aware of the world that surrounded her, her body's responses beyond her control. She existed only through the pain, everything else that was once her had been consumed by its fury._

_Back somewhere in that distant place where her body was, an explosion from above bathed her body in fire. She hated fire._

_Time seemed to be moving in slow motion. She could almost count her heartbeats as she labored to fall to the ground and clutch herself in agony._

_Beat-beat. Beat-beat. Beat-beat._

Beat-beat-beat-beat-beat-beat!

Bastila's eyes snapped open. She gulped air in rapid, greedy breaths, with a hand to her chest feeling her frantically racing heart. Each beat pounded inside her skull, adrenaline from the sheer intensity of the vision making her feel at once light-headed and like the weight of a battle cruiser held her down.

Soaked in cold sweat that had broken out all over her body, the thin blankets of the bunk in the _Ebon Hawk_'s starboard dormitory where she had slept felt like the wet, slimy walls of a kinrath incubation sac. To stave off the feeling of being trapped and confined, Bastila cast the linens aside with a shaky hand and swung her legs over across the bunk until her feet touched the cool floor.

With two hands to her temples, Bastila did her best to ground herself in reality, to banish the unbidden visions.

The memory was frightening. She'd never forgotten a single detail of that fateful, doomed mission where she'd proven her inadequacy as a Jedi. It was greatly disturbing to her because she remembered only the panic, the desperation of needing to stop Revan before he could kill Vash. She knew herself; there was no hate. Hate was a path to the Dark Side. She had to believe it was only the vagaries of the dreamworld that had shown her with such terrible intent.

Possibly what disturbed her most what seeing through such different eyes. This was not the first time she'd had a vivid recollection of that battle, it was, however, the first time seeing and feeling through Revan's eyes.

Shivering, Bastila drew her nightrobe tightly around herself as she got up from the bed and moved silently through the ship. She found Carth Onasi asleep at the controls in the cockpit, the girl Mission and her Wookiee friend Zaalbar in the port dormitory; the Mandalorian Canderous Ordo was asleep on the garage floor. Apart from the deep bass hum of the hyperdrive that rumbled through the whole ship, it was silent. And empty. The T3 droid they'd acquired on Taris had shut down for a cycle, its power cells recharging, leaving the main hold area to where Bastila found herself wander devoid of any other presence.

She should report to the Jedi Council immediately. She had to inform them of the status of her mission, so many things they needed to know that she knew she didn't possess the capability, insight, or wisdom to resolve. Already, Bastila could feel her mind being shaped by empathy - pity even - for Revan; she was allowing emotion to color her perfect serenity.

Once she arrived at Dantooine, everything would be alright. The knowledge and wisdom of the Masters would be much better able to deal with Revan's turbulent identity. They were what was needed, not her. Bastila belatedly realized that she was in over her head, and had been since the very beginning. This was not her calling, to be embroiled in such a conflict where she would be called upon to violate her own beliefs simply to uphold them. Once arrived at Dantooine, the Masters would take over and her part would be done.

She would go back to her studies, learn from the teachings of Masters past and present, and perhaps attain redemption for her failures in that way. Others could always continue the struggle against Malak; she was more of a liability than an aid to the Jedi and the Republic in her current capacity.

As Bastila was about to activate the long-range communications system, she hesitated, remembering the chilling nightmare.

Leaving the transmitter equipment for a moment, she ducked into the cargo hold, where she'd last seen Namenlos. He was still there, curled up in the same corner underneath his cloak. He appeared to be sleeping peacefully. As near as she could tell, his sleep had been disturbed by nothing. Even his normally-agitated auras in the Force were calmer than usual.

He seemed completely unaware that she had just witnessed one of his lost memories through his own eyes.

More disturbed than ever, Bastila returned to the communication room and activated the array, sending a transmission to the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine. A few moments later, figures appeared on the holoprojector.

"Padawan Bastila, it is good to have word from you," said Master Vandar in greeting.

"We grew worried after receiving the news of the Sith attack on Taris. According to reports, much of the city was destroyed by their assault. We worried over your safety and that of your mission," Zhar spoke in concern.

"And what of your errand to Taris, Padawan?" Vrook asked. "With what insights was our informant able to provide you?"

Bastila carefully cleared her throat and made her report. "Esteemed Masters, by the wisdom of your guidance and the aid of the Order's friends, I was able to apprehend Revan himself. He has been hiding on Taris for the past several months."

Zhar was taken aback, Vandar pleased, and even Vrook bore a look of approval at her news.

"This news is quite encouraging indeed, Padawan Bastila, especially after the loss of the many Jedi aboard the _Endar Spire_."

Bastila frowned. "Master Vandar?"

"The Republic sent a spy probe to check after the status of their ship when it dropped out of contact," Vrook explained. "There was no sign that any Jedi but yourself have survived."

Bastila closed her eyes, feeling the weight of more responsibility falling on her shoulders. More Jedi dead, for her. "As you ordered, I was to hold my mission above all costs. The apprehension and capture of Revan to ensure the safety of the Order precludes and overrules any and all considerations for individual welfare above the good of the whole. I performed only what was my duty, Masters."

"So you did. We would like to hear of Revan himself, Padawan," Zhar said, preferring to take the conversation in a different direction. "As I recall, Master Atris made some rather interesting predictions regarding Revan's... status, at your trial."

"Masters, I am afraid that in this, as in much else, Atris's predictions are as accurate as they have historically always been," Bastila replied. "Revan has no memory of who he is, what he is. Worse than this, even. There is... a void in his mind, parts of it gone, destroyed, other pieces fragmented, jumbled together into something I cannot even begin to unweave. He is impenetrable to me. His is the most naked mind I have ever seen yet I cannot look into it. If you forgive the saying, I cannot see the forest for its trees. And since the battle, he has--well, he has turned into something else. I am unsure of how to best describe what he has become. Wild, perhaps. Untamed."

Vrook put a hand to his chin. "Atris foresaw this as a possibility when she made her assessment. It was she who advised we give you Device of Bonding for such an eventuality."

"Yes, Masters, and I followed every instruction with regards to its use. I did everything correctly; the device severed his link to the Force and prevented the power from running rampant, and it has protected me from him. But I confess to being... less than confident, in its true ability to keep him controlled."

Both Vrook and Zhar frowned. "Could you please explain such irrational misgivings, Padawan Bastila?"

Bastila wrung her hands and looked at the floor. "When I felt there was sufficient need, if the situation warranted it, I did as Atris suggested--I used the collar for punishment. It did subdue him, but I cannot help the feeling that he will be somehow able to overcome its power if only he finds a reason to."  
"Padawan Bastila, such a notion is preposterous!" Vrook exclaimed. "The Device of Bonding works through the perception of its own host. His own ability to experience pain and unpleasantness is what the device feeds upon; it is not something a person can simply muscle past. As much as he thinks to fight it, his own senses will betray him and so subdue him. There is no way for one so bound to overcome his confinement. It is that simple."

Much as she was tempted to be lulled by Vrook's explanation, Bastila was not comforted. If anything, she was all the more unsettled. "Forgive me, Masters, I believe my explanations have been inadequate to accurately describe the level of danger I feel still surrounds this man. Like you said, I do not believe this is a matter of physical strength."

"Bear in mind, Padawan, that you are still young and have much to learn about the Force," Zhar gently reprimanded. "You will soon arrive at the Enclave and the Council will see to this problem. In the meantime, we would like you to relate to us the events that have transpired since you dropped out of contact at Taris."


	12. In Retrospect and Denial

_In Retrospect and Denial_

A paralyzing pain woke Namenlos from his sleep, the first peaceful sleep he could recall. The pain itself was not a new experience; pain was his near-constant companion, had been for as long as he could remember. Crippling headaches, physical abuse, phantom pains that refused to go away, and most recently, a heinous device of imprisonment and torture locked around his neck, glazed over by a facade of faith and the illusion of goodwill.

This was different.

For the briefest of instants just as he opened his eyes and became aware of the world around him, a searing agony held him captive in its grip. It felt like the flesh had been flayed from his back. He had only enough breath to wheeze inaudibly before - as quickly as it had come on - the pain vanished.

Trembling, he put a hand to his spine. He felt something wet, sticky, and warm.

Shaken, Namenlos staggered to his feet, drawing the tattered remains of what had once been a cloak around himself. He stared without comprehension down at the corner in which he'd been sleeping--at the bloodstain on the floor.

As he drew in shallow breaths, calming himself down, he put a hand to his neck, felt the accursed leather collar the Jedi Bastila had put on him in order to 'save' him--a tool of subjugation and control. She said he was endowed with the powers of the Force, but when he lost his mind - her words - he lost his ability to control it, and as a result his own affinity would gradually begin to destroy him if he went without help. She said the headaches were only the beginning, and they would worsen. This much he could believe; he'd grown to fear his headaches so much he would do almost anything to keep them away.

He knew it felt like more and more of himself was slipping away every time he touched the emptiness he always felt lurking just behind those headaches.

Bastila claimed to be concerned for him, claimed the Jedi Order meant only to help him. Her solution - the Jedi's solution - was to enslave him.

Namenlos' anger heated again. He'd vowed to himself no more life lived at someone's whim; not a street punk's, not a crime lord's, not the Jedi's.

His stomach twisted, reminding him of how hungry he was. He couldn't remember the last thing he'd had to eat, and now that the thought of food had entered his mind, his mouth watered at merely the idea of nourishment. Yet, at the same time, he felt he was about to vomit. Caught between the conflicting physical impulses, Namenlos fought a retch and put his back up against the cargo bay wall, sinking to the floor as he tried to settle himself. He remembered this predicament well enough from his time on Taris; helpless, without hope of things ever improving.

Now Taris was gone. For good or ill, that chapter of his life was over.

He heard a soft rap on the wall, looked up to see Mission peeking in at him. "Hey, you okay?" she asked in a subdued voice.

He'd lived on Taris only a few months. She'd lived there her whole life. While he could, to a degree, understand what the girl was going through, Namenlos couldn't really comprehend how much worse it was for her to have seen the destruction of her home. He hated everything about Taris, but it still was all he had, and all she'd had. Now it was gone.

"I've been kidnapped, enslaved, and forced to watch everything that used to be my life go up in flames." He shook his head. "What do you think, Mission?"

"Ahem!" Bastila had appeared behind Mission, stood with her arms crossed, wordlessly demanding the Twi'lek girl leave her presence.

Mission shrugged, retreating. "See you later, Namenlos?"

"I guess," he replied.

"We will be landing at the Jedi Enclave shortly," Bastila announced, letting herself into the cargo hold. "The Jedi Council will wish to speak with you immediately, I have informed them of current matters and your own condition. I'm sure they will also wish to begin your training immediately."

"Training," he said flatly.

Her serene smile faltered. "Yes, the Jedi training. In order to properly control the power within you, you must learn the Jedi way. If left untrained, as I have said, this power will kill you, even with the collar." Her expression darkened. "Worse, if improperly trained, you would turn to the Dark Side and become just like the Sith. That is the fate of anyone who foolishly believes it is acceptable to use the Force for their own personal gain."

"Jedi don't use the Force for themselves?"

"It is our calling, our duty, our very destiny, to use the gift of the Force in the service of others, not ourselves. Among many others, this is the most important thing you will learn, from Jedi much better than I who will be better able to teach you the founding principles."

"So the purpose of a Jedi is to take what is his own and give it to someone else?"

Bastila frowned. "Sacrifice of our own wants and needs is our sacred--"

Disgusted, Namenlos cut her off. "It is our 'duty' to take what is ours, something we were born with, and use it as a justification to enslave ourselves to others, any others?"

Bastila licked her lips, exasperated. "Pledging ourselves in the service of others is not slavery, as you would put it, it is the only moral use of the Force. It is not our place to judge who is or is not worth our help if they are in need."

Namenlos' ears twitched and his nose flared in ire. "What about Mandalorians then? They assaulted and destroyed our world, massacred and butchered thousands of my people, while you Jedi did nothing! Are we still to give up our lives 'in service' to them?"

Her face lost some of its color. "You know nothing of what happened."

"You're wrong. I know plenty. I may not know who I am, but I have always remembered _what _I am," he snarled. "I'm Cathar, and I will _never _forget what the Mandalorians did to my people. I'll learn your little codes and your rules, I'll learn whatever you want to teach me about the Force if that's what it'll take for you to take this collar off me. But don't ever, _ever_, expect me to forget what I am. What I am is all I have left."

As soon as his tirade was finished, Bastila quickly regained her composure. She went back to a smooth, placating voice. "You are seeing only what you wish to see, Namenlos, only what is convenient for your state of mind. You are upset, and perhaps you have the right to be, but you must let go of this pointless anger; it does you no credit and only harms you. To be a Jedi, as you soon will be, we must constantly be on guard against the lure of the Dark Side. It is just this sort of anger, what seems like perfectly reasonable objection, that carries the poison of the Dark Side. Anger leads only to hate, and the true suffering of the Dark Side.

"The Sith were once Jedi who fell into this same trap. Now they work toward the destruction of the Light and the free civilization of the Republic, but it is they who pay the true price. The Dark Side corrupts all it touches, and it is only through strict adherence to the ways and the Code of the Jedi that we can keep it at bay. For all other courses, the lure of the Dark Side is unavoidable.

"If for no other reason, this is why you must allow us to help you, Namenlos; to keep the Dark Side from you."

Namenlos could hardly believe the things he was hearing, but it was clear to him that Bastila sincerely believed in what she said, she wasn't simply the messenger for this Jedi Council--this was what she believed. In a way he almost felt sorry for her; she was devoting so much of herself just to convince him to give up his life and go willingly into this slavery, something he would never do.

He clenched a fist. "You teach me what you want. All your codes can't take away the fact that you took me against my will. That makes me a prisoner. I intend to learn what I need in order for you take this collar off me. I have no interest in being a Jedi, but the Sith have certainly earned nothing but my hatred, and I have little choice in the matter besides."

Before Bastila could respond, the ship's intercom crackled with Carth's voice. "We're touching down."

* * *

Namenlos squinted his garnet eyes as he stepped out into the bright sunlight. In months of living in the shadow-world of Lower City Taris he'd grown quite accustomed to low light. Not a cloud in the sky, the full sun hit him like a slap in the face. It was something entirely new, and apart from the squinting, he didn't half mind it. The warming rays were a welcome change from the cold, dank drafts coming up from Taris' lower reaches to make him shiver in fitful sleep while he grappled with insanity.

A sideways glance at Bastila and his mood soured once again. She was asking Carth, Mission, and the others to stay with the ship while she and he went to see the Council.

Examining the grounds around the landing pad, Namenlos took appraisal of the Jedi Enclave, his new prison. The pad itself was one of three, obviously the Enclave's primary port of connection to what few cities Dantooine could call to its name. People of several different stripes were strolling about, inquiring at the few markets placed strategically between the pads and the buildings of the Enclave itself. He could see Humans, Twi'leks, and Rodians in abundance, with the occasional Iridonian and Quarren straggler, an Aqualish here and there, and a few individuals of races he didn't recognize. Most of the people were wearing the same tan-brown outfits Bastila favored; this probably identified them as fellow Jedi.

In addition to the bright sky - through which glided enormous, graceful creatures and colorful birds of every sort - all over the grounds were planted tall, proud trees full of leaf and flower. Lush pads of thick grasses lined every walk, and beyond the complex, vast fields of green stretched for miles. He could smell the warm richness of the air, so different from the abrasive feel of floating concrete dust in an atmosphere that stank of molded building insulation, rank sewer water, and creeping vermin.

The gentle breeze lifted some of his smaller dreadlocks, he pushed them out of the way. This was the sort of place he could grow to love--but not as a prisoner. The shackles of oppression would turn even the lushest paradise into a purgatorial wasteland to him. Pretty words and beautiful surroundings did not negate the fact he had been denied his freedom, his life.

Namenlos had regained his glower by the time Bastila called "This way," and began leading him into the Enclave proper.

Leaving the landing pad behind, they entered a round courtyard dominated at the center by a massive, thick-trunked tree whose branches roofed nearly the entire ground, filtering the glare of the sun and letting its glow upon everything in dappled streams. Many tan-robed Jedi were meandering through the courtyard, still more sitting on benches either around the perimeter, in fuller sunlight, or up against the broad trunk of the guardian tree, conversing in low, respectful tones, reading, or simply sitting peacefully, eyes closed; others stood about engaged in similar activities.

Most - the very young and young adults, as far as he could tell - wore a thin braid in their hair; most without this distinguishing feature were attired in dark blue robes of similar design that somehow seemed to make their wearers seem more important. Perhaps this was a part of the hierarchy.

As he and Bastila passed through the courtyard, all eyes turned first to her, then to him, and stayed on him. Whispers broke out in the hushed courtyard, the words obscured by the masking sound of rustling leaves in the wind, but Namenlos knew they had to be discussing him.

With his dirty, tattered clothes, unwashed body, long, twisted hair, his filthy and ravaged face, not to mention his surly, unfriendly expression, he was probably a sight the likes of which no one present had ever seen before. An uncultured barbarian, an unenlightened savage; that was what they saw as they looked at him. That was what they felt gave them sovereignty over him, they were somehow better than him.

Namenlos acknowledged none of them.

Some of the younger ladies crowded around Bastila, eager to speak with her but obviously a bit intimidated by her presence and that of the strange new visitor.

"Welcome back, Padawan Bastila," trilled one of them, a petite Twi'lek girl who looked only a few years older than Mission and with a greener hue to her skin. "It's been months, we all missed you so."

"Thank you, Rusha," Bastila replied, walking at a rather fast clip, apparently not relishing the possibility of being hemmed in by the gaggle of admirers. "I have had important work for the Council and the Republic."

"Will you be staying long?" another girl asked.

"That depends on the Council, Klaire," Bastila responded.

The girl Klaire, who looked only a year or so younger than Bastila, turned her naive blue-eyed gaze back to Namenlos. He noted her attention but pointedly refused to look back at her.

"Who is he?" Klaire asked. "Are you training him, Bastila?"

The girl's question caused Bastila's face to flush, something Namenlos noted with some satisfaction, having hardly ever seen the Jedi so flustered by such a simple thing as attention. "No, Klaire, of course not. The Council will oversee any training he may receive."

Klaire's blonde ponytail bobbed as she nodded agreeably. "Belaya told us you were bringing another Cathar to the Academy. It was such a shame losing Juhani, maybe things will feel a little better around here now with him around. What's his name?"

"Klaire, wait." Bastila stopped a moment. "What happened to Juhani?" she asked the girl.

Klaire shrugged. "She attacked Master Quatra with a training lightsabre, injured her quite badly, and then fled the Enclave several weeks ago. We haven't had word of her since. Poor girl."

Bastila's face took on a look of maternal authority and she grasped Klaire by the arm. "Klaire, Juhani has fallen to the Dark Side. Did Master Quatra survive?"

Suppressing a few tears, Klaire nodded. "After she recovered, Quatra left for Coruscant. I don't think she expects Juhani to come back."

"Juhani is lost to us, Klaire, you must put her from your mind."

The girl nodded again, sadly. "'There is no death, there is the Force,'" she intoned. An expression of sudden cheer spread across her face. "I hope we can talk later, Bastila. It's been dull here without you."

Bastila bid the girl goodbye and they continued on.

Namenlos had paid keen attention to the exchange. The mere mention of another of his kind had rooted his ears to the girl's every word. There were few of other species or races who could truly understand his own. Especially now, after the diaspora and exile from their own world, bonds among Cathar, even strangers, were strong. He would have wanted to speak with this Juhani before making such a brazen assumption as had Bastila.

They moved past the onlookers and clucking admirers, into yet another building. It was neutrally-lit, decorated sparely, and eerily quiet all about. A few brown-robed Jedi passed in either direction, all easily twice as old as most of the people outside, undoubtedly masters and the like.

Bastila led him down a series of hallways and through a few intersections, at the last of which they were met by an older, dark-skinned, balding Human in the dark blue robes he'd seen on a few of the Jedi outside. He examined the both of them with a sharp eye, taking twice as much time on him than Bastila. The man was committing Namenlos' face to memory, he realized. He wasn't sure how he could know such a thing, but it seemed what he would do in the situation.

Finally, after what seemed like hours under the man's scrutinizing gaze - but had, in reality, been only a few seconds - he took his gaze off Namenlos to smile warmly at Bastila.

"Master Dorak," Bastila said in greeting, bowing.

"The Council are eager to speak with you and--your companion," Dorak said, noticeably avoiding saying... something. They were hiding something from him.

Dorak gestured. "Come, they are waiting for you both."

At his behest, Namenlos and Bastila followed him into a large circular chamber, about half the dimensions of the courtyard outside, enclosed by a glass dome overhead that let the fresh sunlight in while maintaining a surreal calm and quiet inside. At the far end of the chamber sat a row of ornately simplistic high-backed chairs arranged so they curved with the natural flow of the room itself and the face of each seat's occupant was directed inward--towards him as he approached the men waiting.

Those seated included an older man with thinning gray hair and a permanent scowl affixed to his face, a Twi'lek with a pinkish-tan hue to his skin, and an odd little creature of a race he'd never seen before. Creature was the wrong word, but words failed him to describe the green-skinned, two and a half-foot... person, with a deeply-wrinkled face and long pointed ears who sat on the far right of the three. Dorak took a seat beside this odd fellow.

Namenlos looked at Bastila, at her unreadable expression, then looked at each new face in turn, trying to size up each one and gather what he could from passive observation. No one said anything.

For an instant, while his eyes tracked between the man with the sour disposition and the Twi'lek, Namenlos was struck by a sliver of nauseating pain. It couldn't have lasted for more than a fraction of a second, otherwise he would have retched his empty stomach onto the polished marbled floor in front of everyone, but while it did last, it seemed to stretch on into infinity. His head felt like it was being torn open like an obscene flower.

The moment it stopped he drew a shallow breath and staggered a little on his feet while the shock and physical sensations dissipated as fast and suddenly as they had come on. Within a matter of seconds he began to wonder if perhaps he had imagined it. But the bile in the back of his throat invalidated that conclusion.

He looked at the faces again. Nothing. Namenlos could not shake the impression that a lot more time had just passed than it felt like.

"Welcome to the Jedi Enclave," the Twi'lek said to him. "I am Zhar, a member of the Jedi Council here on Dantooine. This is Master Vrook--" he gestured to the surly Human with gray hair beside him, "and this is Master Vandar," he said, indicating his short companion. "You have already met Master Dorak, our Academy Chronicler."

Namenlos nodded at each one in turn. "Why am I here?" he asked.

Vrook spoke, and as Namenlos suspected, his voice matched his appearance; scratchy, impatient, and grating. "You are here because you cannot remain loose in the galaxy with your powers untrained. Such untapped power could easily kill you without proper help, or worse; put innocent lives in harm's way."

"What Master Vrook means by this," Vander, the tiny green Master who sat between Dorak and Zhar, interjected, "is that it is both for your own well-being and the safety of the citizens of the Republic that Bastila has brought you here. We Jedi are concerned with the safety of all life. It is our duty to ensure that those gifted with the powers of the Force receive the proper training of their abilities. In other courses, such as when there is too little training, or training that is in some other way inadequate or improper, there is great danger to the Force-adept that they will fall to the Dark Side, the enemy of all Jedi. If not properly guarded against, the Dark Side can consume even the greatest among us."

Almost as if on cue, Dorak began speaking. "The Sith who now threaten all freedom in the galaxy are led by the fearsome Darth Malak, once an accomplished Jedi and, by many accounts, a hero of millions. When he and his illegitimate master turned to the Dark Side, they unleashed the Sith upon the galaxy, and now Malak works to bring all peoples under his rule. It is this kind of tyranny and oppression to which the Jedi stand in opposition. Our most important function in this capacity is to ensure that Jedi never stray onto this path in the first place--"

"--thus emphasizing the importance of proper training and devotion to the Jedi Code," Master Vrook finished for Dorak. "Only by strict, total adherence to the ways of the Jedi can one resist the lure of the Dark Side. This is the undertaking that lies before you."

Namenlos stood silently regarding them all for a moment. Once, he might have been able to read the movements of Zhar's _lekku_, but that inexplicable knowledge was gone from him. Vrook was easy enough to read; every crease and fold of his face spoke of a conviction that this entire proceeding was a very bad idea. Oddly enough, Namenlos found himself half-agreeing.

"What if I say no?" he asked the assembled Council of Jedi Masters, who had taken the considerable time explaining the obvious why but not the baser why. There was much more to this than they would tell him. Not once had they asked his name, suggesting they already knew it. If they knew his name, it stood to reason they knew a lot more even than his name.

They were holding his life in their hands in more ways than just the one. He hungered for those answers, but at the same time he feared what might be necessary in order to find them. The clearer his picture of the Jedi Order became, the less he liked the prospect letting them "train" him.

His question was received with well-honed looks of scholarly concern from Zhar and Dorak, and a darkening expression of disapproval from Vrook. Vandar remained neutral in his reaction.

"Namenlos, you mustn't refuse. You are not qualified to judge the ways of the Jedi," Bastila chided him in a low voice of warning. He whirled on her.

"Then first tell me who I am!" Namenlos demanded. "Tell me how this nightmare became my life!"

"Brash, loud-mouthed, arrogant. You would do well to keep such unbridled backtalk in check," came the stiff rebuke from Vrook, who scowled gloriously at him. Namenlos glared in response.

"The apprentice's questions are not unreasonable Vrook," Vandar spoke, and for some reason Namenlos felt vaguely reassured by the oblique support he had just been given.

"You are correct, apprentice," Vandar told him. "We do indeed know many things about you, and in due time it may be necessary for you to learn of them from us. But the mind is complicated, and more so when the Force is added into the equation. Suffice it to say for the time being, apprentice, it is best that you be allowed to come to these answers on your own, for only then will they be truly meaningful to you."

Vandar was right on all points, Namenlos concluded with sick realization. He would not trust things of such import coming from the mouths of the people who had laid claim to his life, his precious life. He could never be certain they were not simply more tools to keep him in control; metaphysical collars that brought on phantom pain to bring him to heel. Even so, to be so close to what could be the keys to what had come before, and have them dangled just out of reach, was demoralizing.

"Am I then to remain nameless?" he asked in a numb voice.

"You have already given yourself a name," came the response from Zhar. "Your decision on a name for yourself, in your condition of uncertainty and desperation, displays you hold the will to continue this search for answers. Keep it for the time being; though it is only a name, it gives you an anchor to what was and what will be."

Reaching inside himself, he drew in a deep breath--

_My name is Namenlos. I am Cathar and will always be Cathar._

--and exhaled quietly.

His choice made, "How long?" was his last question to the Jedi Masters.

"It would be unwise to set a time limit for something so important as training in the ways of the Jedi, apprentice," Zhar responded. "It may take no time at all; it may take decades."

With deliberate slowness, he brushed the hair away from his neck so they could see the hated leather collar on his neck. He touched it lightly, feeling its buzz of warning, the harbinger of what pain it could unleash were he to try to remove it, or if Bastila found cause to stop him.

"You put this collar on me; I intend to have it off. If it takes decades then so be it."

"Very well, apprentice," Zhar said in acknowledgment. He gestured and Namenlos noticed a brown-robed girl about Bastila's age entering the room. She halted halfway between him and the door and stood expectantly.

"Belaya here will see that you are settled. Go with her and she will show you to your living quarters," Zhar instructed. "Your training will begin tomorrow at first light."

* * *

Namenlos walked stoically and nodded woodenly as he was led through some of the more mundane parts of the Jedi Enclave by the talkative Jedi Padawan Belaya. She looked as old as Bastila, but behaved as if she were five or six years younger. Like some of the younger girls she was somewhat chirpy and fascinated by the prospect of something new and exciting, but on certain occasions he could clearly see the hardening layers of dogmatism beneath the evanescent cheerfulness.

She pointed out to him areas of interest, such as the open libraries, the exercise floors, cafeteria, communal showers, and vigorously detailed the strict rules relating to all of them. Occasionally, she would call his attention to one group of individuals or another and launch off into an inconsequential anecdote about some of them. Namenlos just grunted his acknowledgement of her tangents, not really interested in the latest Jedi gossip.

"Do you ever speak?" Belaya finally asked him as they entered the dormitory wing.

"Often enough," he responded, not looking at her.

She hmphed and came to a halt at a door midway down one corridor. "This will be your room," Belaya said as the door slid open, revealing the small but well-furnished room inside. Namenlos raised an eyebrow in suspicion as he crossed the threshold to examine his new habitation.

A simple bed stood at one end on the smooth tile surface, a large circular area rug on the floor between it and the door. To the side was an open closet and a small dresser, both of which looked well-stocked. A spare nightstand held a ceramic pitcher and bowl, as well as a clean white washcloth. In one of the remaining corners stood a table, on which lay both a rudimentary datapad and a plain, unmarked book, as well as a small pile of credit chips.

Belaya let herself in while Namenlos studied the plain walls, planning. She rifled through the closet, precociously picking out a set of uniform tan robes that would match those of half the students and masters at the Enclave. She thrust them at him with authoritative expectation on her face.

"Take these, go to the showers and bathe yourself, then give your old clothes to the laundry master to be burned. I understand this is something you may not be used to, but you are in a civilized establishment now and you will be expected to maintain certain standards of cleanliness," she said in a tone that was suddenly condescending.

Namenlos took the clothes and threw them angrily to the bed. "I will not be talked down to by you," he said with quiet fury.

"You should beware of your anger, apprentice. Anger leads only to the Dark Side," Belaya clucked, the impersonal armor of a Jedi locking over an innocent young woman's face.

"Get out," he hissed, not in the mood for more lectures.

She shrugged. "Mind what I say, apprentice, or you will find the path of your training long and difficult indeed." And then she was gone.

Namenlos sat down on the bed, testing the softness of the bedding. It was certainly more luxurious than anything he'd had on Taris, but there was a springiness to it that made him uncomfortable, for some reason reminding him of falling. The clothes were another matter. While he ruefully admitted that the freshly-cleaned, pleasant-smelling, drab brown robes would be a sight better than the permanently-stained, granite lice-infested, scavenged wardrobe he'd built up to himself during his time on Taris, there was certain sentimental value attributed to his old clothes. To get rid of them would be giving up another part of himself.

"Can I come in?"

He looked up to see Mission and the Wookiee Zaalbar standing at the door. He nodded. "Sure."

The Twi'lek girl immediately jumped onto the bed and sat beside him. "How are you doing?" she asked.

Namenlos edged on the bed a little bit out of reflex as Zaalbar came closer. "I don't know. I feel surrounded. You know how that feels?"

Mission smiled the slightest bit. "Well, there was that time Big Z and I got captured on Taris. You saved us, as I remember."

Namenlos grunted, cracking the smallest of smiles himself. The thing he remembered most about that was the mystifying behavior of the fellow rakghoul who helped him and the undeniable intelligence he'd sensed behind those black oval eyes. Thinking on that just reminded him of other painful things, so he turned his thoughts away from them.

"Do you feel like you just want to go back to how things were before?" he asked Mission seriously.

"Yeah," the girl answered. "But we can't ever go back, just forward, I guess. But maybe we can make forward better."

"How do we do that when every part of forward is controlled by someone else?"

Mission wrung her hands. "Well, I don't know. But they can't control you or how you look at it, can they? You're still your own person, right? I know Griff used to say things are always better with a bottle of juma and a good attitude." She frowned. "But that was Griff for ya. I think he was trying to say not to be thinking about all the bad things in life all the time."

"Think about the good things, then?"

"Yeah, something like that. I mean, after all, you're still alive, right? Still alive and still kicking, and that means there's hope."

* * *

There was a ripple, a wave, an echo of something profound. Juhani sensed it as clear as day even if she couldn't tell what it was. Even shrouded in the Dark Side, deep in the old grove surrounded by ensorcelled beasts that did her bidding, she could still perceive that something fundamental had changed.

Something deadly important was now different.

For her, the Dark Side had not proven to be everything it was supposed to. Rather than feel liberated, she felt only further enslaved. She could never get away from the fact that she'd killed her Master. Juhani hated what Quatra had put her through, but she could no longer tell herself that she should have died just for that. She just didn't understand whatever lesson Quatra had been trying to teach her when she died, and that was the worst of all; knowing only that she'd failed the test, without even knowing what the test was.

Likewise, there could be no escape from the fact that Nemo was dead because of her. She hated that even more, for she'd not asked him to come looking for her, she only wanted to be left alone. The hounds had protected her, only for her to belatedly realize he was no threat to her.

The only threat to her was she herself, for letting the Dark Side take hold of her.

But perhaps that would not always be so. During the weeks of her isolation since exiling herself to the wilderness, she'd become familiar enough with the ethereal currents of energy affected by the unique Force signatures of Dantooine's inhabitants to know that something had changed. If her meditation was like the serenity of a lake in spring, this echo was like someone had tossed a handful of pebbles into its unbroken surface. It was a disruption, a storm, something caused by what could only be a very unique individual.

Even if Juhani couldn't detect the person behind this intriguing Force signature, she could certainly feel its effects. It was an alluring sensation, not quite a promise, but ripe with possibility.

For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, something pierced her shell of numbness, something she would have thought long dead within her.

Longing.


	13. Convalescence

_Convalescence_

"What is it, Mission?" Carth asked, irritation plain in his voice. Half-wedged between the hyperdrive and the bulkhead, he had to suck his stomach in to fit in his tight position and reach for the cracked vacuum line he was attempting to repair. One foot was off the floor as he stretched awkwardly, his knee pressing painfully up against a row of bare bolts, the threads leaving tiny impressions on his skin, digging into his kneecap.

"I'm not sure. There's some Jedi outside who wants you," the girl answered.

Carth cursed under his breath as he lost his balance again and had to reset, brushing the thin plastic tubing with his fingertips, straining for that last half-inch. It was just not going to be possible.

"What for?"

"I dunno. He just said for me to get you."

That was certainly new.

A full week they'd been docked at the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine - for all intents and purposes, stranded - and he'd gotten not so much as a yip or yap from any of the Jedi; not about Bastila, or about when he could get back to the fleet. In the meantime, he and Canderous had been fixing everything they could find on the ship that was damaged from their hasty flight and even some things that weren't. The Mandalorian's muscles were quite useful in 'discovering' things in need of repair.

Even so, cooped up in the claustrophobic space freighter was wearing on his nerves. There were only so many war stories - both the innocuous and distasteful varieties - he could take from the blunt Mandalorian who was his main companion. He had to constantly remind himself that that war was long over and he had plenty enough problems to worry about without bringing up a finished conflict.

Still, seven days of utter silence from the Jedi, and suddenly they were asking for him.

Wiping black, greasy hands on his sleeveless shirt, Carth maneuvered himself out of the tight squeeze behind the hyperdrive, tossing his tool to Canderous, giving up on the vacuum line for the time being.

"Alright. Thanks Mission."

Leaving the engine room, Carth made his way to the dormitory where he'd left his only other shirt and that horrible orange jacket he bought on Taris. He ducked into the tiny closet-sized refresher set into the wall and washed the grease from his hands, arms, and face as best he could, drying off with a small hand towel. He ran a hand through his light brown hair, already starting to gray around the fringes.

Looking himself in the mirror, Carth was shocked to see how much he'd aged over the past few years. He was still in his early forties, but the image in the mirror made him look closer to fifty. With Dustil long gone, Morgana dead on Telos, and an unending vendetta demanding his every effort towards the war, always the war, life seemed to hold very little for him. He'd become an automaton. Driven by an implacable need and heedless of the cost to himself, he plodded ever onward to what would certainly be his eventual destruction.

Carth turned away from that depressing picture of himself, the countenance that spoke to a life wasted, and quickly changed shirts and threw on his jacket. Better to meet with a Jedi in a somewhat clean - if otherwise hideous - jacket and shirt than one covered in engine grime and exposing arm muscles he'd let go embarrassingly much. There was nothing he could do about the grease stains on his trousers, though. He didn't bother about shaving the forest-like stubble sprouted over his face.

Stepping down the ship's boarding ramp, Carth caught sight of his waiting Jedi. Attired in faded blue robes, thin gray hair clung to his scalp in something of a ring, not quite sufficient to cover his whole head. The beginnings of deep wrinkles were proudly displayed on a face that looked to have never been pleased in his whole life.

The Jedi held out his hand. "I am Vrook."

Carth took the proffered hand, clasping it firmly. "Carth Onasi."

"Perhaps we should speak inside, but I understand you have requested to leave," Vrook said off-handedly as he maneuvered Carth toward the Enclave buildings. He went without objection but not without annoyance. He'd wanted to leave and rejoin the fleet from almost the instant they touched down and disgorged Bastila and her Cathar cargo. Her irate, irrational Cathar cargo.

"I have put in a few requests," he responded coolly, knowing from experience not to lose his temper around Jedi.

Vrook turned to small talk as he led Carth deep into an archive facility, well away from the tiny port. They passed row after row of tall shelves packed full of holodiscs, punctuated by sporadic tables and desks, many of which were occupied by Jedi of every stripe, as were the narrow spaces between the shelves. Jedi coming, passing, searching out various things; they were all around. As they went deeper, however, the company became much more sparse, and the contents of the shelves changed as well. Older, more primitive storage devices became more prevalent as they went farther in; optical media, magnetic strips, even basic paper-and-scroll was all around them.

Almost no one was present in the back of the archive, but even so, Vrook took him through one more door, leading to a quiet, totally secluded meditation and study chamber he guessed was reserved for only master archivists and advanced scholars.

"Here we may conduct our conversation without worry of our words being overheard," Vrook explained.

"Do you have something to tell me or not?" Carth asked, his patience nearing its end. If anything bothered him it was Jedi evasiveness and obfuscation.

Vrook circled the room, adjusting a book here, a lampshade there. "In light of our current situation, the Council has petitioned the Republic High Command to keep you here."

Carth felt his blood heating. "Care to tell me why? I've been for days to get out of here."

"There are times, Captain Onasi, when you must subordinate your own wants or preferences in order to further the greater good. You have done more to help our cause by aiding Bastila and bringing her here than you even know. But you are needed here, and will be needed in the near future."

"Like I said; can you tell me why? You wouldn't have brought me inside if that was all you had to say to me."

"You are correct," Vrook admitted. "There is more for you to know. But what I say to you must not go beyond this room. You must not breathe a word of it to another soul. This goes beyond merely your loyalty to the Republic or any foolish loyalty to yourself. If you break this trust, there will be catastrophic consequences, consequences that will ripple across the galaxy. Do not make the mistake of underestimating the graveness of what I am about to tell you."

Carth sucked in his breath.

"You know of the Jedi Bastila was sent to find and recover, yes?" Vrook asked.

"The Cathar who wants to kill us all because we took him out of the gutter? Yeah." Carth still remembered the naked rage of the nameless Cathar as he went for his throat, furious over Carth's refusal to sanction family-destroying drug business by setting free an obvious dealer. Carth regretted letting his own painful history push him over the edge, letting himself peremptorily sentence the man to death, but Namenlos' violent reaction stunned him nonetheless. He acted as if he'd killed an innocent man when the truth is no man is innocent.

Vrook's scratchy voice startled him out of his momentary reverie. "He is no Jedi. You are correct in assuming this, but there are many things about you do not know that perhaps you should. His usefulness has not nearly been depleted. This is part of what I must tell you, to convince you that you must remain here for the time being.

"Please take a seat. This may take some time."

* * *

The fist-sized stone floated a few inches above the ground, indifferent to the demands of gravity or the persuasion of the gentle breeze that took the edge from the blazing noonday sun casting the rock's shadow on the ground between them. Bastila held her meditative pose perfectly, immersed in the Force, allowing some of her energy to seep through the connection to Revan's collar, letting it work its way into his own senses, aiding him. Master Zhar and Master Vandar sat by her, using their own talents to control some of the many variables involved in this simple demonstration and allow Namenlos' latent abilities to come to the surface at his command.

It was an elementary test, but one he had to master if he was ever to regain any kind of control over his powers. He was reaching out tentatively in his attempt to hold the stone there of his own will.

Bastila could feel his unconscious use of power taking some of the minute load from her. He was doing it. She withdrew some of her own powers to see what his threshold was, almost expecting him to re-master his innate skills in an instant.

This did not happen. The moment she took away her support, Namenlos' fragile grip on his powers evaporated. The stone clattered to the cobbles, raising tiny streamers of dust. He opened his eyes, unsurprised.

"Again," she instructed, taking his hand in hers. "Close your eyes and concentrate on my hand, on the pressure on your palm, each individual impression of my fingers. Concentrate on this only and let everything slip away."

He obeyed wordlessly, working to clear himself of all distractions so he could again focus on the fundamental strength of the Force inside him, to use that affinity to affect the world around him-- with her help, of course.

As Namenlos sat still and quiet, searching inside himself for his elusive abilities, Bastila once again privately marveled at the transformation he'd undergone over the past few days. Only a day after his audience with the Council and his guarded acceptance of their generous offer of training, his disconsolate hostility had given way to an inquisitive, cautious eagerness. His first request was to Master Dorak for time in the library to learn of the history of the Jedi Order. He didn't complain even after days spent making no real progress, seeming to understand that this was a thing that could not be rushed.

Namenlos sat before her dressed in plain, freshly cleaned and pressed brown and tan robes, the dirt and filth of Taris cleaned from his body, his hair - still in long dreadlocks - tied back in bunches by leather thongs and his streaked beard trimmed back to reduce its gnarliness. His crevassal scar still stared at her like a second face, but the deep red of his eyes no longer added their own glare to the one she formulated in her mind.

The minutes passed, and Namenlos passed the point where he was even aware of Bastila's hand holding his. She returned the hand to its place on her knee and urged him onward with only her mind, ever so slowly and carefully taking him back to the threshold. Without looking, she already knew the stone was floating obediently under their linked influence, and she began to withdraw her power.

He faltered again, unable to marshal his strength. The stone dropped.

"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head.

"Do not be," Bastila heard Zhar admonish him. "It will take as long as it takes before you are able to accomplish even this small demonstration. This is why normally the Jedi do not accept adults for training; the grown mind is too burdened with facts, knowledge, perceptions of the universe that do not reflect reality, and so has a much more difficult time learning to embrace this fundamental facet of our existence. Yours is a special case, however."

"I believe a break for now would be beneficial," Vandar suggested. "Padawan Bastila, perhaps you could show the apprentice some of the surrounding countryside?"

"Thank you for the offer, Master Vandar," Namenlos responded. "But I would rather return to the library and continue studying my history."

Perhaps predictably so, his interest in galactic history was his most vigorous pursuit. He was a man without a past, so it was understandable that he would seek to learn of it, and neither Bastila nor any of the Masters did anything to discourage this interest.

"Very well," Zhar acknowledged with a nod of his head. "But do not neglect your other studies, apprentice."

"I won't," he replied, standing and stretching his legs, joints creaking and popping as he did so. Bastila immediately stood as well, to accompany him as she did every time he entered the library or any other of the semi-restricted areas of the Academy. Sometimes Master Dorak's supervision was needed for him to look through some of the volumes holding his fascination. Dorak hardly ever refused his requests, in fact he encouraged them.

As she followed Namenlos from the peaceful meditation square, he untied some of the leather straps that held back the long, thick strands of his hair so it fell more freely over his face and shoulders. He'd cut a few of the excessively long dreadlocks, but to nothing close to normal Jedi regulations. It was part of his identity, she'd realized after a few days, something he would not compromise, same as his defiantly-thick streaked beard; marks of who he was.

"Dorak will be pleased to see you again," Bastila remarked as they passed a fountain spewing crystal blue streams into the warm clear air. She felt the mist on her skin as she walked by. Namenlos mumbled something in response, his mind clearly on other things.

"If I may ask," Bastila said cautiously, "why is it you spend your every free moment in the library?"

Without turning to her, he answered with a question of his own. "Am I not expected to learn new things?"

"Well, yes. But surely you realize that there is more to the Jedi training than simply learning. There is a bond between one Jedi and another, something we all share with each other; we are joined in the single purpose--"

"What are you trying to say, Bastila?"

She furrowed her brow. "I am trying to tell you that you should not be afraid to seek companionship from other Jedi. We are all connected by our duty to the Force and are here to provide encouragement and support to those of us who may be struggling with their responsibilities."

"Are you upset that I've not been working to integrate myself into Jedi society, not satisfying my desire for 'companionship' with other Jedi?" he asked pointedly, fixing her with his garnet gaze.

"Well--I," she stammered, "you are still distancing yourself from freely offered friendship, Namenlos. That is what concerns me."

"And yet you are the one who has repeatedly hammered home that I must give up my selfish wants and desires," he remarked, cutting her argument in half. Bastila's tongue stuck in her throat as she tried to come up with a response. "I study history because that is what I choose to do with my time, and unless you're going to discourage these studies I will continue to do so. Now can we please stop talking about this?"

Bastila couldn't see how to press the issue any further without contradicting her own lessons, lessons that had seemed so right and perfect when she was taught but now seemed like foolishness when repeated back to her. "Very well," she answered, ceding the argument.

Walking in silence, a few young padawans passed them on their way to the library. A few of the girls batted besotted eyelashes at Namenlos, who stoically ignored them while Bastila clucked to herself at their one-mindedness. She reminded herself that being hardly more than children they must be allowed their imperfections, for come the time of the trials they would not be. For the time being they were still young women, with young women's urges and desires, not yet fully Jedi as she was.

She had come of age much sooner than was typically allowed, so great was the need for her abilities. Many Masters did not approve then and still did not, but faced with the enormity of the Sith threat, the grave danger to the Order, and the Republic's begging for assistance, Bastila was granted full Jedi status years younger than was customary.

Bastila ruefully noted the growling of her stomach, reminding her how long she had been in session with Namenlos, once again without measurable success or progress. "It is about time for the noonday meal, perhaps you should at least eat before--" She realized Namenlos was not responding, and not because he was simply listening quietly; he didn't hear her. His shoulders were shaking and shallow sounds of labored exhalation escaped his throat.

She stopped. "Namenlos, are you alright?" Instead of answering, he coughed violently twice, then bent over and gasped suddenly. He looked up at her.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I just couldn't breathe is all. But I'm fine now."

"I can't detect anything from your Force aura," Bastila admitted. "With you it is always difficult for me to tell if something is wrong. Perhaps we should consult one of the Masters if you feel--"

"No, no," he protested. "I'm fine. But let's eat before the library; I really need to eat something."

* * *

There was no one in sight at the southeast fringe of the Enclave grounds, Juhani noted with some satisfaction. She knew from experience that hardly anyone ever ventured out the southeast side, and thus it was her favorite place on the grounds to come. There were too many unattractive trees sprouted among the atypical rocky ground to make for much of a scenic walk or the preferred direction to gaze upon a sunrise. The gnarled trees were beautiful in their own way to her, for some of them reached up to the sky in wide, broad spreads of thick branches large enough to hold a small house if one cleared out the space inside. No one but she saw them this way, however, and most regarded that part of the grounds as an eyesore, best avoided in favor of other, more beautiful things.

For these reasons, Juhani knew it would be safe to stay even this close to the Enclave and Academy here. She'd often been the lonely forest's sole lodger so it offered comfort in familiarity, something she graciously appreciated after the weeks of depressed isolation out on the plains.

She couldn't see any of the Academy buildings through the trees, she was still too far and they were too thick, but she knew exactly where she was relative to the Enclave. Juhani had even passed the remnants of old campfires from previous times she'd sought solitude and serenity from these woods, easier, more peaceful times. She had precious little more than her lightsabre and her clothes which, despite her obsessive washing at streams, had become inevitably dirtied over the weeks, but she'd made the choice not to return to her grove until she fully investigated the intriguing inklings she felt from the direction of the Enclave, the mysterious new presence that had so disrupted the flow of things.

Though they remained out of sight, Juhani could still sometimes sense the presence of the kath hounds, making wide circles around her as they kept their unquestioning watch over her. They were her only precious companions; protecting her and never judging her for it. She'd once thought the Jedi the same, but that had been a cruel lie. Now there was no one but she.

Her ears caught the scampering footfalls of a passing elk rabbit and she fried its brain with a weak bolt of electricity from a finger; a meal for later. Draping the carcass over a low-hanging branch, Juhani began setting up a new campsite, this one closer to the Enclave than she usually stayed. She didn't want to chance missing any opportunity to see the source of this disturbance in the Force that fascinated her so.

With her hands and the assistance of a stiff dead stick, she dug a firepit which she then lined with stones from a crumbling granite boulder that jutted up among the drift of crisp leaves nearby. Tuning her lightsabre to a low setting, she cut down several young saplings to make herself a mat up in the tree to sleep in, weaving soft spruce branches between the loose lattice and piling them on top for comfort.

As she worked, Juhani began to remember things, feelings that, while they couldn't cure her heartsickness, were nonetheless faintly encouraging. She began to feel the pride of accomplishment; not like the egotistical pride her mother had always warned her against, but simple joy in her own ability. The Jedi had never made the distinction, but she did.

Hours later, when she sat comfortably next to a warm fire as the evening air cooled quickly, the thought finally fired through Juhani, setting her alive with purpose and, for the first time, the beginnings of understanding. There was another distinction the Jedi had failed to make, one that cost Master Quatra her life and Juhani her soul.

What she'd wanted was not revenge, but retribution.

* * *

Sunset surprised him again. Looking up from the manuscript he held in his hands, Namenlos noted with some annoyance that daylight had fled away while he was not paying attention, the same as it had the last few days when he became absorbed in whatever it was he was reading. The rays of the sun through the library windows onto the table where he sat were a deep gold and the contrast with the letters and symbols on the page burned his eyes until they ached. Bastila was somewhere nearby, either with some reading of her own or in meditation. At any moment she would--

"Come, Namenlos, the Masters are waiting for us." Right on schedule, the Jedi in question appeared behind him.

"Do you really think we'll have any more success than we have this past week?" he asked wearily, massaging his sore eyes. He'd been so lost in the histories of ancient Onderonian royalty he hardly noticed the protests of his body.

Bastila put her hands on her hips, pursing her lips. "Come, Namenlos."

Shrugging at her lack of response to his question, he put down his study material and got to his feet. He was unprepared for the rush of blood that hit his head. Purple spots swam in his vision as he swayed dizzily for a second, feeling the sting of a faint ache somewhere in his shoulder.

Annoyed, he shook it off and started after Bastila, who was already marching to the door.

She and the Council were pushing steadily, despite the little progress, and he couldn't exactly say he opposed their determination with him. He spent so much time in the library because they had never said he couldn't and it was a way for him to set his own boundaries, to control that small portion of his life. If he could learn to touch the Force, he would be one step closer to regaining total control of his life. Once they took the collar off him, then he would be free.

Something tickled at the back of his throat, a dryness he couldn't swallow. Namenlos disregarded it.

For the next session, Bastila and the Masters had taken him inside, in the Council Chamber, instead of the garden. The same as before, Zhar and Vandar sat to either side of him, facing inward, while Bastila was directly in front of him, her crossed legs only a matter of inches from his. She took his hands in her and instructed him to close his eyes, as she did every time.

Namenlos felt a warm fire ignite within him, beginning from the same thin line around his neck and quickly permeating his every muscle. He recognized it as the source of the collar's pain, except it was a comforting rather than punishing sensation. As Zhar explained, it was Bastila utilizing her connection to the collar to lend some of her own abilities in order to aid him in finding his. Instead of fighting it, as he had at the first, he let it seep into his bones, pushing away any and all distractions.

It was a peaceful feeling, even if it had never helped him divine the source of his alleged powers. He could sense Bastila, and sometimes one of the Masters, guiding him, as if they were directing his hands, except that he knew she was no longer holding his hands. Instead, this was like they were guiding the hands of his _mind_, attempting to teach him to do it on his own.

_Take it!_ Bastila instructed him. _Grasp the stone in your mind, hold it there as hard as you can._

Tentatively, he reached forward like a blind man until it seemed like he had what she wanted. He start to grasp it as she said, only to realize something was wrong.

A shallow breath rattled past the spreading dryness in his throat and all at once an insistent ache shoved through the homogeneous blanket of serenity wrapped around him, pulling his mind away from its abstract thoughts and into unforgiving reality.

Blood was pounding through his head in uncomfortable waves, his mouth and throat felt like rubber, and his shoulder was wet and sticky underneath his brown robes. Namenlos was so dizzy he didn't even notice it when he fell onto his back. He couldn't understand what was wrong; this was not one of his headaches, nor was it the collar, though he couldn't imagine why Bastila would be using the collar on him in the first place. His mind raced to come up with an explanation even as he coughed up a viscous glob of something foul from the back of his throat.

Bastila and the two Masters were hovering above him. He couldn't really hear them, but he could tell they thought he'd been injured by something. Zhar put a hand to Namenlos' shoulder, feeling the wet stickiness. The Twi'lek's fingers came back red. Bastila's face went white.

Someone - Bastila or Zhar, he couldn't tell anymore - lifted the robes away from his bleeding shoulder. Skin came away with the cloth.


	14. Roses And Thorns

_Roses and Thorns_

Bastila felt every beat of her heart pounding inside her head as she walked anxiously through the _Ebon Hawk_, one step away from panic.

"Mission!" she called again, frantically.

To her relief, the Twi'lek girl appeared from the ship's turret, a quizzical frown on her face. "What is it? Where's Carth, is he back yet? He's been gone for hours."

"I don't know, Mission," Bastila said hurriedly, dismissing the question. "I need you to come with me. Immediately."

The puzzlement on Mission's face gave way to worry as she saw Bastila's seriousness. It was well indeed, for this was deadly serious.

"What happened?" Mission asked.

"There has been a... development," she answered, not quite sure what to tell her as neither she nor the Masters were able to figure out what had happened. "There is something wrong with Namenlos," Bastila admitted.

Mission's eyes widened, a flash of anger crossing her face. "What did you Jedi do to him?"

"Please just come, Mission?"

Just then, the Wookiee Zaalbar came down after Mission. "_What is wrong?_" he asked.

"Bastila says something's happen to Namenlos," Mission said, shooting a glare Bastila's way.

"_Then we should go with her as she asks,_" Zaalbar said solemnly. "_Perhaps we can help_."

"Thank you," Bastila said graciously. "Now can you please hurry?" She hadn't planned on taking Zaalbar, but didn't think to order him to stay behind. It wasn't really imperative he not come, anyway. He might even be right; if Mission couldn't be of any help, there was a chance he could.

But somehow Bastila doubted even that small chance. In fact, this felt to her like a blind act of desperation. She, Zhar, and Vandar had already tried everything they knew to identify the source of Revan's ailment, but none of them could penetrate the twisted, swirling storm of ephemeral currents surrounding him to diagnose what was wrong, much less try to heal it. It was like a wall stood between them and his force of life, a wall made of gossamer strands twisted over themselves so many times it would bend and stretch to any length but never break or give way.

Bastila had a terrible feeling she knew the reason for it.

They'd moved Namenlos to an infirmary bed, and had to strap him down to keep him from harming himself with his thrashing. He was feverish, shaking, sweat soaking his skin. Watery blood ran almost freely from a grotesque wound on his shoulder where his skin had peeled back, revealing a grayish, leathery contusion in his muscle tissue.

Mission shrank back a little when she saw him, moving closer to Zaalbar. Her eyes were wide with horror. "I thought you said you would take care of him," she whispered. She jumped a little when Vandar appeared behind her.

"Try, we did, dear one," he said sadly. "We do not know the reason for his condition."

"Mission," Bastila pleaded, "do you remember anything from your time with him on Taris, anything that might explain this? Do you recognize any of his symptoms?"

Frightened tears had come to the girl's eyes. She nodded. "It's the rakghoul disease. He must have got bit saving me and Zaalbar from Gamorreans."

Bastila's heart quickened its already lightning fast pace. She thought she would die of panic. "Are--are you sure?" she stammered, trying to think, to reason out the few possibilities in her mind that suggested she could be wrong. But she knew she wasn't.

"_I have seen those infected with the rakghoul disease before,_" Zaalbar said quietly. He lowered his head in palpable sadness. "_He was like this just before you came. But you helped him then, can you not help him now?_"

Bastila had never felt so helpless. There was no longer any doubt that her worst fears were realized. This was more trouble she'd brought on herself.

It was the collar. And her error.

She was supposed to have proved her redemption by this mission to recover Revan and return him to the Light, regain her honor and worthiness to be Jedi. Instead, in her zeal, she had only compounded her problems by thinking she knew better and ignoring Mission when she tried to warn her. If she'd only listened, she could have stopped the sickness before it progressed this far. Instead, she saw only her chance at redemption, and assumed. A very costly assumption.

Suddenly, another desperate thought fired through her, one last chance to prove herself. Perhaps it was not yet too late. For them to help, certainly; but maybe not for him to help himself.

There could still be a chance, and everything she'd worked for would not be for nothing.

"Mission," Bastila said, having a hard time keeping her voice under control. "Do you remember anything from Taris, anything he did that was... unusual?"

"What do you mean?" Mission whined, trying valiantly to keep the sobs from her voice.

"Think, Mission! Did he ever do anything--anything he should not have been able to do? Something that seemed impossible?"

Mission looked hesitantly over at Namenlos, who was lying still for the moment. She closed her eyes in tight concentration. Then she opened them wide, remembering. "Yes!" she exclaimed. "He's thrown Vulkars across a cantina without touching them. But he says he doesn't know how it happens, that it just does. Do you think that can help him?"

"There is a chance, Mission. That's all I can say."

* * *

He was a speck, an insignificant atom floating in a vast void. Nonetheless, he felt comfortable knowing the exact parameters of his existence, being able to count each individual speck with which he shared his environment. He could affect them easily, felt in control.

Without warning, he was inundated by a flood of new presences, an infinitude pressing down around him from every side, threatening to crush him. The profundity of his irrelevance smashed through every barrier his mind could erect. He felt powerlessness as he had never felt before, faced with awareness of the weight of the entire rest of the universe.

It was terrifying.

His breathing quickened, his heart raced. Slowly he became aware of his physical surroundings, not nearly fast enough to ward off the terror of the dreamworld that still pressed on him. Despite feeling the firm cot beneath him, he still couldn't banish the indistinct, undefined horror from his mind. It was pervasive and insistent, remaining even as he opened bloodshot eyes to the waking world.

Namenlos gasped, shivering against the cold, sweat-stained pillow, trying to make sense of what he saw. It took a moment for his perception to match the visual sensations. He recognized Bastila and Zhar above him.

"What happened?" he asked, trying to take his mind off the dream and surprised by how weak his voice sounded.

"You are sick, Namenlos," Bastila responded. "You collapsed during training."

"Sick?" The nauseating dizziness, the sandpaper scratchiness of his throat, and dull aching of his shoulder confirmed the question even before he'd finished asking it.

"You were bitten by a rakghoul somewhere on Taris," Zhar explained. "Mission told us."

"I don't understand," he rasped, still trying to forget his crippling terror, to slow his breathing.

"Listen very carefully. We cannot heal this in you; your nature will not allow it. You must do so yourself or you will die."

"What do you mean, my nature?"

"I made a mistake," Bastila admitted, her eyes lowered. "I should never have put that collar on you before listening to Mission. It was a mistake. It not only sealed away your power, keeping it from killing you, but it also twisted the sickness around inside you, made it impossible for us to heal without further damaging you. When I put the Device of Bonding on you, it seemed like you were recovered suddenly, but the disease had only mutated into something we could not detect."

Namenlos remembered the blood on the floor where he'd slept; a warning he'd failed to heed. "So," he choked, "you mean that nothing can be done? I am to die like this?"

Zhar shook his head. "We believe there is a way for you to be saved, but we cannot help you. You must heal yourself, use the Force within you to purge the sickness from your body. We cannot use our powers to help you, it would only make the problem worse. Only you can destroy the disease inside you without causing damage to yourself."

"I can't even lift a pebble with the Force," Namenlos moaned, swamped by helplessness.

"Not by direct intention, no. You needed Bastila's help, and still couldn't sustain it by conscious thought. And the Device of Bonding prevents unconscious projection of Force energies," Zhar explained. "But you have done this before, on Taris, without knowing it."

Namenlos' eyes felt like they were trying to bore themselves into his skull. "I don't understand."

"Namenlos," Bastila said softly, "we have taken off the Device of Bonding, the collar."

His breath caught in his throat as suddenly he understood the nightmare; his "power" unleashed. He'd always imagined a feeling of liberation, but felt only dread knowing he was again at the mercy of his mind.

"We do not know how you are to save yourself," Zhar said to his numb ears. "We only know that you somehow have in you a chance to save yourself. You have done it before."

Sick in more ways than one, Namenlos tried to sit up, only to realize he was bound to the bed. He tugged at his wrists. "Let me up," he breathed urgently.

Bastila hurriedly undid the restraints. He massaged his hands and ran shaking fingers through his hair. He ached all over and the headaches hadn't even started yet. "I need to go."

"Go where?" Bastila asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I can't stay here. I have to go. Please." As he got to his feet, swaying slightly, he realized he was shirtless. And cold. Bastila handed him his robes, which he draped loosely over himself. He started for the door.

"Namenlos!"

"Let him go where he will," Zhar said to Bastila.

"I know I'll die eventually without Jedi help, from the headaches and the Force," Namenlos said as he leaned with two hands against the threshold, not even thinking. "I don't plan on dying. Not yet. But I'm going to unless I do what I need to. Don't follow me."

"Alright, I understand," Bastila said, sounding unconvinced but not objecting.

Leaving the two Jedi behind, Namenlos shuffled down the halls, only about half aware of where he was in the Enclave. He paid attention to even less, instead simply following the smell of fresh air; the night air. His eyes were of limited use inside the blindingly-bright buildings. He would have a much better time of it outside in the dark. Despite having to turn around and seek different paths when he found himself at cul-de-sacs, he finally found his way outside.

His shoulder hurt so much he could barely feel it anymore. Namenlos wandered aimlessly underneath the cloudless night sky, thinking desperate thoughts until he got a hold of himself, pushing the panic down. He tried to remember the times on Taris when he'd done as the Jedi said he did, tried to recall how he was able to call on the Force those few times in peril. Vaguely, he remembered his anger; anger at being persecuted, anger at the persecution of another. Perhaps that was it; anger. Somehow, he didn't think so, otherwise he might not even be in his predicament.

But still, he thought about that anger as he walked painfully through the grass, toward a gnarly tree that stood on rocky ground well beyond the manicured lawns of the Enclave proper. He was starting to feel his headache coming on, and wanted to find a proper place to shelter where he would not be disturbed or accosted by roaming wildlife. He found the tree too small and moved on, farther from the Enclave and deeper into what looked to be a sparse forest of the wide-branched trees.

Bastila and the Jedi preached that anger, anger in any form, was wrong. Anger led to the Dark Side, or so they said. It twisted every imagining of a person's mind so that in the end they were nothing but indoctrinated slaves of evil incarnate, feeding on death, tyranny, and oppression of all others. A Jedi fallen to the Dark Side would become Sith, they promised, a champion of intolerance, cruelty, and brutality; a beast without conscience or soul.

Namenlos had seen what the Sith were capable of, and it was hard for him to argue that they weren't everything the Jedi said of them. But he did not understand their insistence that anger was inherently evil. It would be blasphemous not to feel anger at the atrocities committed by the Sith, or the cruelties others who were not Sith.

Not to feel anger at such a horror as the destruction of a planet and a people, or at bigoted oppression and intolerance, or the assumption of the wicked that they could hold sway over the sovereign life of another with no fear of consequences; to feel no anger at such injustices was insane.

Namenlos stopped when he realized he sensed something. His ears pricked, his nostrils caught a scent, his acute night vision detected faint glow much farther into the forest. And there was something else. He felt something in his bones, an instinctive reaction to a presence he found tantalizingly familiar, yet wondrously new. For a moment, he almost forgot about the oozing, leathery wound on his shoulder sending waves of pain through his whole body with each step, the rawness of his throat, and the ache squeezing around his skull, amplifying every beat of his heart into a jarring pound against the back of his eyeballs.

Moving closer, he could soon hear crackle of fire to match the pine smoke that pervaded his olfactory senses. As he did so, something in the back of his mind urged caution, but he ignored its warning. The pain of his headache mounting, his thoughts became wholly centered on investigating this presence sharing the forest with him, even as he could feel himself almost ready to drop simply from lack of balance.

He just wanted to see what it was, who was there. Namenlos had never felt so inexplicably drawn to anything. The warm smell of the fire, the cool night air, the closeness of the forest all around; it evoked a sense almost of kinship.

He'd finally caught sight of the flames when finally the tickling in his mind brought him to full attention. He regarded its warning with annoyance, trying not to think too intensely as his headache worsened with each second. Nevertheless, his hand slipped toward his knife.

Almost before he could even touch the handle, Namenlos heard a sharp rustle of branches parting and someone landing upright on their feet just behind him.

He whirled around to find a blue lightsabre blade erupting into the night in front of him.

His headache vanished.

Lunging to the side, he rolled away as the lightsabre chopped into the air he'd been occupying an instant before, freeing his knife as he hit the ground. He sprang to his feet an instant later and swung blindly with the knife to get his attacker to back off. They jumped out of reach of the arcing blade and Namenlos swerved to the side again as the lightsabre, blindingly bright to his night-adjusted eyes, came at him.

Without thinking, he reached up and grabbed a limb, hoisting himself up and over the sabre strike which put a deep score in the trunk of the tree. He landed on his feet directly behind his attacker. Silhouetted by the crystal blue of the lightsabre, he could see that his attacker was woman, well fit and agile, with a single tail of hair flying atop her head. Just from reading the movements of her body, Namenlos could tell she was angry.

As she whirled around to swing at him again, twirling the hilt of her sabre so the blade spun like a fan, she chopped off the thick branch from which he'd vaulted, it crashed to the ground in a great whoosh of dry leaves and snapping twigs. Namenlos backed away from her fury, knowing his puny knife was no match for the lgihtsabre in a straight-up fight. He continued to retreat, holding the blade out in front of him in a defensive posture, as the woman advanced steadily toward him in jerking, spasmodic attacks, randomly severing branches and scoring tree trunks in her path.

Namenlos was gaining distance on his attacker with each impulsive strike she threw at a tree or branch. He was beginning to entertain the idea of simply making a run for it when he felt the encroaching pain of the headache creeping back into his brain.

He couldn't have a breakdown now. She would tear him to ribbons.

Clutching the knife in a sweaty palm, Namenlos gritted his teeth against the pain and forced himself forward instead of backward, into the face of the threat. He bounded off a low-hanging branch and somersaulted in midair as she took a swipe at him. Flying overhead, time seemed to slow to a crawl and he could see every seam on his attacker's clothes, read each strand of honey-brown hair effervescing in the blue light, analyze the myriad components of each scent that wafted through the air.

Before even he understood it, an instinct more powerful than anything he'd ever experienced screamed through his muscles, overriding the downward stabbing motion of his knife before it reached her shoulder, neck, and carotid artery. It was a mix of recognition, empathy, and something he'd sensed earlier; kinship.

His attacker was Cathar.

All too suddenly, time resumed, and his flight came to an ignominious end, like that of a swoop rider who inadvertently dodges into an obstacle and is tossed from his ride. Tumbling out of control, he sprawled on the ground, the knife flew from his hand, and he landed on his arm painfully, straining a shoulder that already felt wound tight as a Tarisian ropewalker's line. Pain exploded in his torso, ripping the breath from his lungs so he could manage not more than an agonized wheeze. The headache descended on him full-force, nearly blacking out his vision entirely as he fought to stay conscious.

Namenlos was dimly aware of the point of the blue lightsabre being held inches from his chin. Saliva and blood dribbled from his mouth as he turned his eyes up to his victorious opponent. He could barely make out her face past the glare of the lightsabre, but the green-amber sheen of her golden eyes in muted starlight was as piercing as a lance, even through the fog of pain shrouding him.

"Did the Jedi send you here to kill me?" she demanded in a voice that bespoke sudden desperation. "You are a Jedi assassin. Answer me!"

A hard lump had formed in his throat, making it painful to swallow or even breathe. He coughed violently, trying get it out. More blood spilled from his mouth, and he managed to to faintly gurgle, "Not... a killer!"

""You lie!" she shrieked. "The Jedi sent you to punish me, to subdue me, because I sought retribution for all their lies and manipulations. They sent you to kill me because two Jedi Masters are dead because of me!"

Each breath felt like it would rip his throat out. "They didn't... send me," he tried to get out, but his words were lost to the rasping snarl in his throat, bubbling through the fount of blood and bile into something no longer recognizable as intelligent communication. His tongue felt hard and rubbery, the taste of his own blood was becoming disturbingly pleasing.

Underneath the mountain of pain and agony, in the parts of his brain still functioning, Namenlos knew he had not much time, perhaps only seconds, before the rampaging rakghoul virus claimed him totally. And he was powerless to stop it.

"Why?" The single syllable miraculously rattled past the obstruction in his throat still intelligible and took her by surprise.

The woman blinked at him. "They say this is the Dark Side, where I have fallen. That is why you Jedi will hunt me down and kill me for what I have done."

Unexpectedly, a deadly calm took over Namenlos, purging his mind of all fear, panic, anger, resentment; everything was swept away by the cold passion of this equilibrium. His mind was devoid of emotion, of conscious thought itself, but it was not a malevolent void, one that hungered to devour everything he was; but rather it was a void at the beginning of creation, the void that promised limitless possibility. Slowly, his anger crept in, accompanied by indignation, the two volatile emotions combining to form wrath; a concentrated stream of rage against unpunished injustice.

He felt on the verge of an all-important revelation, some key that would unlock another part of himself. Just from the evanescent amber-green sparkle in those golden eyes slicing through to his soul, he was struck by the feeling that he'd known this woman all his life. And now, more than anything, he wanted to _understand_.

If he was to have only a moment's more of sanity, he would not have her think of him as an assassin.

The strength to raise himself to his knees came seemingly out of nowhere. He clenched his fists, threw his head back, and screamed, "Noooooooooooooooooo!"

A concussive blast shook the trees, leaves blew back in a ring radiating out from him in the center. The very air lighted with pale green tendrils of illumination licking out in long undulating waves.

As the breath drained from his lungs, darkness reclaimed Namenlos' world.

* * *

_The thick, musty odor of cobwebs and mortar dust from centuries-old stone walls filled her senses. Light was streaming in from a skylight in the domed roof that was partially obscured by an influx of creeping vines that were spread like a thousand thin fingers down through the ancient mausoleum. The dappled sunlight provided sufficient illumination to reveal the layout of the large antechamber in which she stood. Two rows of fluted stone columns lined the central path leading from the entrance behind her and directly up to a massive vault door, covered with line after line of words in an archaic language she didn't recognize, as well as geometric symbols and architectural lines. Off to the side of the path were a few forgotten skeletons; animals mostly, but there were a few recognizably bipedal frames lying in death and decay._

_She took a deep breath and walked forward, passing a hand before the stone archway that had stood sealed for an unknowable length of time. She felt strong emanations jumping the small distance from the door's pitted surface to her hand, joining with her Force aura, and returning subtly changed. She smiled to herself at the pleasure of it. It was like leaning into the easy cradle of a lover's embrace; carnal, but divinely right._

_"Is this wise?" Bastila heard a voice beside her ask. She immediately recognized Alek's baritone, turned to his concerned expression._

_"We discussed this, Alek," Bastila heard herself say, but she started when her voice came out strikingly different, nothing like hers. Gruff and masculine, yet musical in its own way, it was a voice she knew well, but it was not her own._

_"I know," Alek responded, shuffling his feet as he crossed and re-crossed his massive arms. "I just think we ought to think about this one more time before we commit. Just in case you have any doubts."_

_"No, I have no doubts, Alek," Bastila replied. "The Jedi must wake up and face the truth. If they cannot, then they are a danger and an obstacle to everything we are trying to accomplish. Their misguided version of nobility has already brought enough suffering to the innocent and helpless. I am going to do this; if you would wish otherwise, leave now and do not come back."_

_Alek smiled like he'd just been given the relief of his life. "Well said, Revan. I would have been prepared to kill you if you should have gone back on your word, just as you asked. And you needn't fear my commitment. I am just glad neither of us are foolish enough to test the other's resolve."_

_"Thank you, Alek," Bastila breathed, reeling._

_Despite seeing everything with her own eyes, she felt she was nothing more than a passive observer; she saw what she saw, but the vision was not her own, she spoke, but the words were not hers. Everything she was experiencing, easily familiar, was completely alien to her._

_She knew what this was, and it filled her with both terror and elation._

_Breathlessly, she waited for herself to do whatever would unlock the door before her and Alek. Her heart pounded with anticipation knowing she was about to witness one of Revan and Malak's first steps down the path of the Dark Side. Everything was happening so slowly she thought she would die of anxiety._

_Finally, she turned back to the door, steeling herself with resolve. "Very well, then. We begin the crusade."_

_The doors parted..._

"Bastila!"

Belaya's concerned exclamation brought the world slamming back into place around Bastila. "Bastila, are you alright?" she asked.

Putting figners to her temples, Bastila could still feel the urgency of the vision pressing down. She was more disturbed than ever at what this could mean.

"Bastila?"

Finally, she regarded Belaya's worry. "Yes, I am fine," she lied. "Thank you for your concern. I must speak with the Council at once."

Belaya graciously bowed as she turned away, but Bastila barely noticed her. Her heart raced and her head swam in the rush of adrenaline; it was the highest state of alarm she'd ever experienced. She navigated the hallways automatically, not even thinking about them as she sped back to the Council Chambers in a gait just shy of a full-on sprint.

She was so absorbed in turning over the ramifications of her vision in her mind that she blindsided someone coming from one of the private studies, crashing into them full-force. Fortunately, the person was larger and heavier than she, and was able to avoid being completely bowled over. The collision was merely embarrassing, not injurious. It was only once she started to hastily offer apologies that she realized the person with which she'd collided was Carth.

"Going somewhere?" he asked with a raised eyebrow at her haste.

She nodded. "I must see the Council."

At her admission. Carth's gaze became suddenly scrutinizing. "Bastila, you look like you've seen a ghost."

"I--" Bastila caught herself. "I cannot discuss it with you," she said tersely. She turned to leave, but a mocking question from Carth stopped her in her tracks.

"Something having to do with your pet Darth?" She whirled around and Carth gave her a crafty smile. "Dare I say his name, or would you have to kill me?"

"How do you know?" she asked breathlessly.

Carth shrugged, picking at a stray thread in his once-bright jacket. "Your Jedi Master Vrook filled me in."

Bastila's tension relaxed considerably, but still she gave him a narrow glare. "If so, then he should also have sworn you to utmost secrecy."

He shrugged again. "Naturally. It actually makes sense. On some levels, anyway. Explains why you didn't want to tell me why we were leaving good people behind so we could go on a search for some lunatic."

"I hope you did not take it personally, Carth. You know I must obey the will of the Council. He could not have been allowed to continue roaming free; to let him slip away would have annulled the sacrifices of everyone who lost their lives for the mission. I had no choice."

Carth grunted, but Bastila couldn't tell whether his words were sarcastic or just plain-spoken. "Yeah, we seem to run into that a lot. Having no choice."

She stared at him incredulously.

"What?"

"I'm sorry, I just expected more - how do you Republic men say it? - fire and brimstone, from you over this," Bastila admitted.

"As long as I know he's completely under Jedi control, that he won't ever hurt anyone like he's hurt millions of people, and that after this he'll be out of my life for good, I can live with it," Carth said. "If it were up to me, though, it'd be a military court martial; trial, and prompt execution. But I've gotten used to taking what I can get. Who knows, maybe he can even be of some use in taking down Malak; that's what you Jedi were hoping, isn't it? Master Vrook wouldn't have told me all this to keep me and the ship here if you didn't have some kind of plan for him."

"Yes, Carth. It is on that subject that I must speak to the Council."

"What is it? Can you tell me anything?"

"There's been a... complication."

* * *

Dawn was just beginning to break the cool night sky and bring muted light to the forest when Juhani heard him stirring up in the tree.

At first, when he unleashed his power, she had retreated back into the trees as fast as her legs would take her. She instinctively knew that he was wielding a power the likes of which one such as she could not match, and perceived it first as a threat. But even as she ran, Juhani sensed something else from the howl of the sudden wind and the sparkling tails of light that shot out in every direction from the mystery intruder on his knees amid the leaves. She couldn't tell quite what it was, but her curiosity compelled her to turn back and investigate.

She found him unconscious, and to her shock recognized him as a fellow Cathar beneath the whirlwind of dreadlocks. As he'd lain on the ground, the thought had briefly entered her mind to kill him, and as if bidden by her thoughts, a pair of kath hounds had jumped eagerly into her presence, but she forbade them from coming near the intruder.

His reaction to her accusations stunned her. He seemed genuinely surprised to encounter her. The intruder reeked of the Jedi, yet he did not fight like one, didn't carry the weapon of one, nor did anything in his demeanor suggest to her that he was a student of the Force. Nothing, except for the incredible display he ignited while on his knees, beaten and coughing blood from his throat.

The more Juhani sat and thought, tracing the lines of a horrific scar on his face with her finger, the more intriguing this strange man became. In the end, she stuck his knife in her belt for safekeeping and carried him back to her campsite, surprised by the lightness of his frame, and laid him in the sleep mat she'd erected in the low-hanging branches of the tree just a few feet overhead.

As she moved him, she had a start when she noticed the wound on his shoulder spewing blood onto his robes. Peeling the soaked fabric back, she found a grayish contusion oozing blood through crack scabs that was vanishing as she watched, healing in mere minutes yet without a drop of kolto.

Juhani was dumbfounded, recognizing the mark of one infected with the rakghoul disease; a plague indigenous to the slums of Taris, where she'd grown up. He'd clearly had no treatment, yet he was healing faster than the most advanced of medicines could afford.

Her interest only grew.

Now she sat by her campfire, thinking and listening to her unexpected guest's slow journey into wakefulness, as the first rays of the morning sun ever so slowly crept their way into the woods. She'd set aside a handful of berries picked earlier for him and chewed on some herbs as she watched the fire.

When she was reasonably sure he was awake enough to hear and understand her, Juhani called out to her guest up in the tree with a nonthreatening tone. "I have not harmed you," she said. "I would like to talk if you are comfortable"

She heard a rustle of leaves and the groan of branches bending. He hopped lightly to the ground and came to the fire, sat opposite her with his legs crossed, resting his wrists on his knees guardedly. In the light of the newborn day, she could see his eyes were a deep glassy red beneath the strong brow, alive with presence and awareness. His scar seemed to throb in the pulsing emanations of firelight playing across his rugged features.

"My name is Juhani," she said into the silence. "I am - I was - a Jedi. I fled the Academy after striking down my master, Quatra, during training." She lowered her face. "And now, because of that, I have fallen to the Dark Side. Another Master came to me, tried to convince me to return to the Light, but I killed him."

"Is that why you thought me a Jedi assassin?" the man across from her asked. His voice was no longer raspy; it was deep, firm, and filled with the same cadence she remembered well from her father.

Juhani nodded.

"Why did you kill them?" he asked.

She stared into the flames. "Quatra showed me a vision of my childhood, of my mother being assaulted and beaten; murdered by a mob who hated her for no more reason than she was not like them. Quatra gave me this vision to test me, to see if I would leave her to be brutalized and abused by those dogs." Juhani clenched her teeth. "I did not. I plunged my lightsabre into the nearest animal, only to realize it had all been a trick, and the one I impaled on my blade was my very master."

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Juhani angrily wiped them away. "I hate her. She has done this to me. You could not understand. To be manipulated by your own past, something you want more than anything to change, to forget; it is unimaginably cruel."

She stopped talking, listened to the crackle of the flames as they burned through the old deadwood.

"I have no past," her guest said with a deep melancholy. Juhani looked up at him. He seemed almost as absorbed in the fire as she, his gaze focused on something only he could see.

Juhani could contain herself no longer. Her curiosity overcoming her courtesy, she asked finally, "Who are you?"

He looked at her, his garnet eyes impossibly deep. "My name is Namenlos, and my life began two months ago on Taris..."


	15. Crusaders

_Crusaders_

For hours, Namenlos simply sat and talked, relating everything he remembered about his life from that first day waking up to harsh voices and being dumped in a Taris slum like a sack of garbage.

As the forest grew brighter, the faint rustle of birds and other wildlife flitting and scurrying about added to the ambiance as he spoke candidly for the first time in what seemed like ever. Juhani, for her part, was a rapt listener, her amber eyes intensely curious. Several times she asked him to detail some event or some character he remembered, and he did so without hesitation or irritation.

He _wanted_ to explain, to detail, to recant every moment of his wretched life. Iit was if merely by the act of divulging his past to another he was actively freeing himself from its heedless weight. He was not escaping the misery of having experienced it, but removing its power over him as surely as the festering wound on his shoulder and the plague inside him had healed.

For much of the time, so absorbed was he in his own account, so deeply engrossed in the mental and emotional transformation happening within him, that Namenlos nearly forgot the intense interest he'd felt the night before, the kinship he felt, being on the cusp of understanding.

Those thoughts swarmed anew. The woman sitting across from him was a near total enigma. Only hours before, she'd attacked him, tried to kill him, thought him an assassin sent by the Jedi to punish her for her sins. She sat motionless by the fire, tranquil, utterly convinced that she was a servant of evil, a fallen Jedi. She despised herself.

Namenlos had considered her confession that two Jedi Masters had died by her hand; murder, by the common definition. But murder was a crime of hate, committed in the mind long before the deed was accomplished. And her fanatical insistence that this marked her as one fallen from the Light, and the agony he could hear behind each word, spoke to something different.

The deep rumblings of anger stirred in him.

Namenlos realized he'd stopped talking. He smiled apologetically at Juhani, wondering what terrible thoughts she was thinking of herself.

She asked him a question. "What would have convinced you to join the Order?"

A scowl came to his face. "I did not want to. I would have fought with all the strength I had, if I had been able to. But Jedi Bastila found me when I had no hope of defending myself. I know she wanted to kill me. She didn't, but did the next best thing." He pulled back the loose robes from around his neck, to show her the mark where the leather had left its impression on his skin; a whitish line circling his neck that spoke of oceans of pain. "She collared me with some foul Jedi device that gave her control."

Juhani gasped slightly. "Surely not. A Jedi would never do such--"

"Not even to someone they considered in danger of falling to the Dark Side?" he asked. Juhani fell silent, let him go on. "She put her accursed Device Of Bonding around my neck, with a promise that once I received the Jedi training, I would be able to control my own power sufficiently enough to make the collar unnecessary."

"She did it to aid you, then," Juhani mused, her hands moving idly in her lap.

Namenlos glared at the trees, remembering the desolate feelings of despair, helplessness; fear, and most importantly, pain. Pain was the one constant in his life. One was alleviated only to make way for another, one more horrible than the first.

"Yes," he answered, teeth gritted. "She did it to save my life, because without it the Force would have continued to run rampant inside me and eventually kill me." He hated this the most because it was true. He'd seen enough evidence of it to accept the truth of it.

"I have heard Master Dorak theorizing that such things are possible," Juhani breathed. "I never imagined I might meet one to whom it has happened." Then she frowned. "But you wear no collar. Surely you cannot have mastered your gift so soon!"

The sting of a distant headache probing at the corners of his mind reminded him of the stark truth of her statement, and that his life was expiring on a time whose limits he didn't even know.

He gave a wry smile to laugh in the face of his impending doom. Death no longer scared him; dictated life did. "No. I cannot even lift a pebble with the Force, not of my own accord. Not even with three other Jedi aiding me. They were forced to remove the collar because the disease wasting inside of me had grown beyond their ability to affect; they needed me to heal it myself."

Juhani's jaw dropped. "Then it was you. If you could not lift so much as a stone, how could you have done such a thing?"

He shrugged. "I--I don't really know, and I don't think they do, either. Sometimes I can just... do things that I shouldn't be able to do. I never know how or why. It just happens."

For a moment he could see what almost seemed like glimmerings of hope in her eyes. A hope for what he could not guess, but the effect was startlingly profound, and beautiful. But as quickly as it had come on, the sparkle vanished and was replaced by dour despair.

"Then you will die soon, without help," Juhani said.

His own smile vanished. "Yes, I suppose I will."

"Will you go back to them, then? You will save yourself?" she asked, and he could sense that hope again trying to rise within her.

The choice was his. He could either return and submit himself to the altruistic dogma of the Jedi, learn to control his powers, and be free after an unknowable time and at an unknowable cost to himself, afterward to live as many years as he would. Or he could stay, not return, and live for a brief time but honor the things he valued; his liberty, his life, and his beliefs.

"I can no longer return to the Jedi," Juhani said, her voice creeping with desolation. "For my crimes they would do well to kill me."

All at once, the anger slowly seething in Namenlos exploded.  
He shot to his feet, furious. The Jedi could not prosecute a war on true tyrants, so they instead laid the burden of sin on a poor girl who had killed her master by accident, an accident of her master's own making. Angrily, he snapped, "What crimes? Son of the Maker, you thought you were defending your mother!"

Juhani flinched. "But I acted on impulse. I killed Master Quatra."

"Curse her!" Namenlos swore in rage. "Curse her and her manipulative tests! You should have every right to protect the ones you love, lives you value dearly!"

"But I struck out in anger, in hate! Hate leads to the Dark Side!" She was almost desperate now, desperate to cling to everything that condemned her. A tear trickled down her cheek.

Namenlos' fury melted. He simply could not be angry with her. He could be with the ones who had so poisoned her mind, but not her. Calmly, he knelt down beside her, took her by the shoulders and spoke firmly. "Juhani, you should hate men like these, who beat and killed your mother. You should feel black rage in your heart at the things they did. Never believe those things should go unpunished, or callously tolerated."

Juhani's lip quivered, her face was a mass of conflicting emotions from stoic calm to confused abandon. He smiled for her, a grim curl of lips. "You know, I was in a position similar to yours once. I was in a cantina on Taris, and a group of bigoted thugs had decided to use an innocent young woman for their own sick entertainment. No one interfered. I was furious. Like you, I let myself hate them enough so I didn't care what they did to me, as long as I could avenge even the tiniest bit of this injustice."

Calmed somewhat, Juhani remarked, "You did not make mention of this before."

"It only just came to mind," Namenlos answered. He took his hands from her shoulders, having had the feeling that he had breached some long forgotten etiquette. "By my actions, I was able to spare the girl from unspeakable abuses."

He grimaced. "For my trouble, I received the worst beating of my entire life." Then his grimace was replaced by a smile of genuine joy, one that was not hard to summon, for the memory was bright and clear in his mind. "But not for one second since have I regretted doing what I did."

A change came over Juhani's face as he recounted the little story. The doubt and indecision that had slashed across her features was gone, banished as if it had never been there, replaced by something between intrigue and caution.

She stood, having regained her self-confidence. "Come, there is something I wish to show you."

* * *

Carth scratched his weed-patch stubble as Bastila and Master Dorak continued poring through the rows and rows of glowing blue holodisks that sat by the thousands on shelves reaching up to the considerably high ceiling and across the length of the enormous archive chamber. It was early morning and they'd been working at it since deep in the night. Carth was dead on his feet, but too intrigued by the things he'd learned over the past twelve hours to even consider letting Bastila out of his sight. For the most part, she tolerated his presence by ignoring him as she and Dorak went through dozens upon dozens - hundreds, even - of holodisks.

"So just what are you looking for again?" he asked through a suppressed yawn.

Bastila didn't even look up. "As I said to you earlier, there is much about Revan that I must understand."

He scowled at the back of her head, at that infuriatingly perfect brunette braid. "That's about as informative as a box of rocks."

Dorak mumbled something he couldn't hear to Bastila, apparently pointing out another volume, or something to that effect. Bastila nodded attentively, not seeming the least bit fatigued even from a solid night of bookworming.

"If his... talents, are to be of any benefit to us, Carth Onasi, we must seek and identify the reasons that compel him to act as he does," Bastila rattled off as she continued reading. Carth plucked a holodisk from the shelf he was leaning against and tried to concentrate on the floating letters. It happened to be a manifest detailing the resources and commodities to be delivered from a supply station to keep the kitchens stocked for a week. He set it down and rubbed his eyes. The paper logs were even worse; he couldn't keep his eyes straight long enough to read the lettering.

"So you want to figure out why he went psycho, then?"

"His mind was destroyed, Carth. I want to know what brought him and Malak so close before they turned to the Dark Side together."

"And you think you're going to find that in here?" A look down just the single row they were investigating was a dizzying kaleidescope of shimmering blue blocks and interposing black lines. There had to be millions of entries, dating back to the time of the Academy's original inception, chronicling every last minute detail of what was being extensively described as unbelievably dull mundaneity.

"Revan and Malak - or Alek, that was once his name – had never even spoken to each other until a little more than a year before they would begin their insurrection," Bastila said. "In fact, for most of his time in early training, Alek was on Coruscant, learning at the Temple. It was only within his last four years in the Order that he came to Dantooine, ostensibly to finish his training and become a Knight. Not that that turned out so well for the rest of us," she clucked. "No, he and Revan would have had no reason to be more than passingly aware of each other's existence. They were never assigned on missions together; they studied under different Masters, in different wings of the Academy; according to the galley master Revan always ate alone in the kitchens and never mingled with the other students. In fact, Revan himself does not seem to have had much import on the lives of many of the Jedi who later followed him to war; Alek did much of the wooing and convincing. By all accounts, they should never have even met."

"So he was pretty much a loner, then?" Carth asked. "It doesn't look like the mad cat has changed much. He still seems to hate us and anyone else besides himself." Bastila grunted and did not say anything, but it didn't sound to Carth like she was agreeing. He scowled and changed the subject. "Well maybe the answer isn't in how he and Malak got to know each other at all," he suggested. "Just figure out why he decided to run off to war, why he wanted to kill Mandos so bad that he rallied half the Jedi Order to turn on its own blasted teachings and fight."

"And while we're at it, Carth, maybe we will stumble across the explanation of why Telosian blood moths always seek a light," Bastila rejoined, lightly tapping a finger against the shelf as she scanned her eyes over holodisk after holodisk of numbing records of immaculate Jedi routine.

She halted her impulsive motion. "Mandalorians!" she whispered. "Of course, I should have remembered sooner!"

Suddenly, she stood upright and began dashing down the enclosed space between the shelves. Carth hurried after her, Master Dorak huffing along behind. "Dangit, Bastila, what is it!"

"He gave me a clue that I failed to take into account," Bastila shouted as she ran.

Carth was winded by the time she came to a halt in a completely different section of the Archives. Here, the pulsating blue was more segregated, arranged into different-sized sectors that covered only a few smaller shelves.

"Where are we?" Carth gasped, panting from the sudden sprint, feeling his age like a sodden blanket draped over him.

"Student Records," Master Dorak announced, infuriatingly full of breath despite being easily fifteen or twenty years older than Carth. "Padawan Bastila, what is it that has taken your interest so suddenly?"

The young Jedi was already filing through the rows of holodisks. "Revan said that he has never forgotten what he is, perhaps neither did Alek."

"I don't understand," Carth protested, rubbing his eyes.

"Think, Onasi! Revan is Cathar, that is the one thing he clings to above all others. Now think back a few decades, when the Republic would not throw itself to Mandalorian aggression. There were victims then as there are now."

Carth breathed a sighed of realization. "The Mandalorians destroyed the Cathar homeworld."

Bastila nodded. "Exactly. Despite his training as a Jedi, Revan must have felt a loyalty to his own people that superseded his devotion to duty. He would have been furious at the Council for not taking action then, and equally or perhaps more so when he became aware of the new Mandalorian attacks on the Outer Rim, mostly on nonaligned worlds who could hope for no intervention from either the Republic or the Jedi. His fury overrode everything to the point where he committed his treason against the Jedi and the galaxy. The question now becomes--"

"--why did Malak do the same thing?" Carth finished for her. "And you think the answer's in here?"

"I know it is, Carth. If Revan and Alek were united by this common goal, there has to be a reason Alek felt the same hatred and fury towards the Mandalorians as did Revan. And the answer is in his past, I am sure of it."

A few minutes later, Dorak, the Chronicler, produced Jedi Alek's record and inserted it into a viewing projector so they could all see. Page after page of blue text floated in front of the three of them, filling nearly the entire room. Most of it was nonsense; a census of his entire tutelage, listing studies, courses, teachers, and every other statistical entry necessary to completely review a student's twenty-something year schooling.

A few pages, however, were indeed interesting.

Young Alek Squinqargesimus was located by an old Jedi Mediator living on Althir. According to the record, he was identified for Jedi training at the age of two standard galactic years, being raised by an uncle in the unexplained absence of his parents, whom the Jedi in question was never able to locate even after an extensive investigation.

The rest of the record was basically clean. His was a fairly standard induction into the Order; no family contact, no personal attachments, no inheritances or ties of any kind to anything but the Jedi. He was considered an excellent student and had trained with some of the more prestigious Weapon Masters on Coruscant. In short, he was a normal, if overachieving, student of the Force. There was nothing that stood out as did Revan's reputation as a shadow-lurker.

Bastila was dismayed.

"I--I was sure this would explain everything," she said dejectedly, as if her physical exhaustion was finally catching up to her. Carth couldn't say he blamed her; she'd been at her archive-scanning for hours upon hours and had nothing to show for it. All she was left with for her hard work was a toddler from Althir who--

Carth's heart missed a beat. Althir. He knew that name.

"Wait," he breathed, "Alek was from Althir?"

She gestured irritably. "Yes, but this provides no explanation as to why--"

Cutting her off, Carth's spoke urgently. "Bastila, Althir was wiped out by the Mandalorians about that long ago!" he practically shouted. "There's your connection! He's got the same Force-fracking sob story Revan has; they're brother pariahs, partners in the corporation of hate!"

Bastila's face went white. Even Dorak was a shade lighter than usual. "By the Force, he is correct," the Chronicler murmured.

"We must find him," Bastila whispered.

"What! You lost the son of a Hutt-whore!" Carth bellowed. "You know what he's capable of, but let Darth Revan go?"

"Carth!" Bastila exclaimed sharply. "Keep your voice down!"

Smoldering, Carth did so, but his anger did not lessen. "You said he was under your control. Blast it, how could you let him go free?"

Bastila rubbed her eye wearily, pinched the bridge of her nose as she spoke just a register above a sigh. "We had no choice."

"Dang!" Carth swore furiously. "I _knew_ you were gonna say that!"

The young Jedi Padawan whirled on him. "He was going to die, Carth!"

"Let him die!" He was livid.

"We still have not learned all we can from him," Bastila protested. "If Revan dies, then certain knowledge only he possesses will be forever lost to us, along with any chance we have of defeating Malak. We had to let him go free - if only for a short while - in order to allow him a chance to heal himself before he dies of a disease we never detected!"

"You needn't worry, Carth," Dorak said in placation. "There is nowhere for him to go. The decision would not have been made if there were any doubt we could locate and retrieve him at a moment of our choosing."

Carth scowled. "What do you mean?"

"The Device Of Bonding, the collar Bastila gave to him, has other uses than inhibiting one's connection to the Force," the Jedi Master explained. "In fact, it is rarely ever used in that capacity. Its main functionality, as its name suggests, is to facilitate the creation of a bond between a master and an erratic student, one who is for any one reason or another unable to adequately control his or her abilities."

Realization finally dawned on him. Carth shook his head, trying to clear away the cobwebs that had gathered from lack of sleep, as he reasoned out the things he was learning. "So you can find him by this... connection?" he asked Bastila.

She nodded. "It is not difficult. He casts such violent currents through the Force that even without a bond it can be hard to keep my head clear of things that come from his mind. It has been since Taris."

"Can you tell where he is now?"

Bastila nodded again, then frowned. "He is somewhere he should not be."

* * *

Juhani by his side, Namenlos stood in awe of the massive structure rising ominously dark against the brightness of the surrounding grasslands, like a drop of obsidian on pearl.

They had left the gnarly forest behind, its easternmost edge lay some half mile to the west, at the base of a long swell in the folding hills. The enormous pillared edifice stood on good high ground, looking out over the neglected forest, in the direction of the Jedi Academy far in the distance, which was obscured from view by another set of hills running parallel to the horizon.

As he studied the giant building, Namenlos noted with considerable technical curiosity the predominance in the architecture of sweeping arcs divided into angular, geometric sections. Joints of the construction fitted together like cogs in a machine, each segment separate and analyzable on its own, yet part of a larger construct and looking ready to retract and fold up onto itself, or to form some new configuration on a moment's notice. There was a smoky, ashen pallor to the enormous structure; balconies, flighted railings, turrets, all a dusky gray-black. The quarried stone blocks that dipped and soared with every undulation and harsh cutoff seemed to have been long cooked in the ashes and vapor of one of Dantooine's slow-smoldering volcanoes.

The temple - for its impossible grandeur and overbearing sense of eminence marked it as such - rose to an imposing height above the countryside. Namenlos was made dizzy with trying to comprehend the magnitude of manual labor that must have gone into its construction, for it bore no marks of mechanized construction or pre-fabrications, as did every thimble and door hinge he'd ever run across on Taris.

Grand double doors stood caved in, as if from a battle ram. The main atrium inside was left tantalizingly open to observation, though he could see little of it from still so relatively far away.

"What is it?" he asked Juhani, staring in wonder.

The woman beside him in her scuffed red robes shivered slightly. He noticed she was keeping her lightsabre close at hand, it hanging from a cord around her wrist. It was clear she did not like this place.

Juhani gave him a look of warning. "I am a mere Padawan, and not supposed to know of its existence."

Namenlos wondered if she thought he might betray her transgression to the Jedi. She had little to fear in that regard, for he planned not to return to the Enclave.

"There is talk, nonetheless, among the students," she said rather awkwardly. "Some study under masters who are sometimes careless of what they divulge to their students, others tend the Archives and see more than they should see. Do you understand?"

He nodded. As did any social setting, the Jedi Academy had its fair share of gossip.

"Most of their talk centers around one of two different theories as to what this place might be," Juhani said, twisting the hem of one of her sleeves restlessly. "What most believe is that this is a secret temple from times past, no longer of any practical use, but once a hiding place where the Order kept the most sacred of Force-imbued artifacts and other tools of constructed power." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Tools such as the Device Of Bonding; they would have been kept here."

He took due note of her remark. "What is the other theory?"

Juhani's face darkened. "Its existence is a secret; no Jedi below Master may know of it. So some believe that it is a resting place of ancient Sith, where certain Knights and Masters may go to prove their bid for the Council by testing themselves against the pull of the dark power that is said to haunt this temple."

He understood, now, her shivers. The specter of that power frightened her.

"Which do you believe?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I fear either possibility. Both groups agree that this is where Darth Malak first envisioned his plan to forever destroy the Jedi, though none can claim any evidence."

Again, he nodded mutely, words failing as he gazed upon the imperious, towering structure. Its authoritative placement proudly amid the sweeping landscape all about spoke to a profound importance that resonated deeply with him.

This was a monument meant to be understood, comprehended, _investigated_.

"It's beautiful," he breathed. And he really meant that; it was as beautiful a construction as any he'd ever seen, far outdoing the fair spires that jutted into the sky on Taris' sparkling Upper City, and putting to shame the squat, utilitarian modules that made up the Jedi Enclave. The same gray-black stone that seemed smoked, ashen, or frosted with dust and grime from one angle, showed its true luster and shine from another, effervescing like fine marble with a prismatic coating. Arched roofs for grand halls raised incredibly tall, regal, with windows many stories high lining the walls.

With a soft exhalation he turned back to Juhani, who still looked distinctly uncomfortable to be so near the temple. "Why did you bring me here?"

For a moment, she faltered, as if searching for the right words to express herself. She looked like she was not even sure if she wanted to be speaking with him until finally she forced herself to talk.

"When you spoke before, about my mother--about hate, and rage," Juhani said hesitantly. "These are the things we are to guard against, yet I can sense nothing of the Dark Side in you."

He wanted to say something, but felt it would be best if he simply let her take her time with her own words to get to what she really wanted to say.

Juhani wrung her hands, managing to look him in the eye. "I suppose what I would ask is this: Do you believe in the power of the Dark Side?"

Namenlos frowned. "I believe that evil exists. And I believe that power can be used for evil purposes," he said frankly. "But no, I do not believe that power itself can be evil. That would be like saying that I should fear my smell or my sight, fear the 'dark' side of those abilities, that they might not turn me evil." He shook his head at the notion. "Independent of a mind to make it so, power cannot be evil."

She nodded slightly and turned back to face the temple. "I would like to believe as you do. I would. But I fear I cannot. There is a power here, an evil power. I can feel it in my bones. Can you not feel it?"

"Juhani, I--" He stopped, considering the magnificent construct. The dusky gray defied the sun's brightness, a dark well that tricked the eye into believing the day was overcast even though not a cloud marred the oceanic blue of the sky overhead. Certainly menacing at first sight, but full of intrigue and hidden complexities when studied. He could see how one's imagination might run wild in inventing foul perceptions for this place; embellishments, inventions, and other twistings of truth turning a benign and artful design into a hideous avatar of sentient horror and evil.

But aside from his curiosity, he felt no ethereal urging, no seductive calls, no diaphanous murmurings beckoning him to renounce all civil principles in favor of savagery, to reduce himself to the level of an animal.

"I feel nothing," Namenlos finally admitted.

"Then what of me?" Juhani asked.

Namenlos now understood why she'd brought him here. She wanted to know if he felt as she felt; felt the same tug and pull of this distant, gray, vaporous entity called the Dark Side, and by bringing him here, to what she saw as an inanimate embodiment of that malignity, he would know what to search for when he looked at her. But he saw nothing, nothing except perhaps unspeakable remorse and a palpable fear for her life. And he needed no Force-sight for it.

He was almost moved to tears by her penitence.

"Juhani, I don't know what your Jedi Masters have taught you to think of yourself, but you can't--"

As he was speaking, Namenlos was interrupted by the whine of a small turbine engine; a noise he was familiar with. Swoop bike. His head swiveled to track the sound, found the source immediately; a single rider in a bright orange jacket that stood out like a sore thumb against the dark greens and grays of the grass and forest. As the vehicle in question drew near, the rider brought it to a halt some twenty meters away and stepped off. Namenlos recognized him right away.

Carth Onasi. Murderer.

Namenlos gritted his teeth, his lips pulled back in a snarl. In one motion, he jerked his knife free and placed himself in front of Juhani as Carth's hand went to his belt for something. Warning pain danced around his head in dainty pinpricks, but his overriding sense of threat allowed him to ignore the discomfort.

The Republic man was sporting several days' worth of unshaven stubble, his clothes were rumpled as if he'd been sleeping in them, but his eyes, though bloodshot from lack of sleep, burned with an intensity and danger such that Namenlos clenched the crude but sturdy handle of his knife all the more tightly in his fist.

Carth's hand had completed its journey to his hip, where his belt held something Namenlos couldn't distinguish. A crooked grin devoid of humor cracked his face. "And what do you think you're doing out here?"

Namenlos didn't hesitate when he heard the tone of the man's voice and knew he could only be here for one purpose. He hurled his knife and screamed for Juhani to run.

The knife missed Carth's heart and most of his other vitals, lodging in his right side. Namenlos expected him to pull his blaster and fire wildly as he fell to the ground in pain, but to his surprise, he only bellowed into the comlink now revealed in his hand.

"Get him!" Carth roared. "He's here!"

Then the noise of other swoop engines touched Namenlos' ears. Jedi.

He turned and ran after Juhani, who was loping for the only possible sanctuary: the temple. Namenlos couldn't catch up with her, she was running like one possessed. By the time he sprinted across the debris-strewn threshold of the giant double doors, she was nowhere in sight.

A quick glance outside showed three other Jedi arriving on transports of their own. He hurried farther into the massive building, not daring to slow to admire the exquisite stonework of the rising pillars, the domes overhead, the relief sculptures on the walls, or even to consider the faint stench of death rising from piles of bones that lay here and there. He took turns at random, dashing down empty hallways and bare rooms.

The place seemed to go on forever. His legs burned from the effort of such a sprint, and he was concerned that with the smooth marble floors and the layers of dust piled upon them he would slip and seriously injure himself. So Namenlos forced himself to slow his pace and to think about where he was going.

Already, he knew he was lost. Juhani likely was, as well. He wondered if the pursuing Jedi would even be discouraged.

As if to keep him company, a squeezing headache wrapped icy fingers around his skull, making every ray of light from a crystal window painful to his eyes. He sought darkness, shadows, places away from skylights and grand halls. Eventually he found himself in a relatively small, round chamber, its only light trickling in through a thick net of vines choking a single opening at the top of the domed ceiling. Two rows of fluted columns rose in the middle, flanking a walkway leading to a set of ornately-carved doors, one of which stood ajar.

As he watched the room around him, Namenlos felt the air suddenly thicken, as if it had all turned to syrup. His lungs couldn't expand and draw breath properly, making the pain of his headache incomparably worse. When he tried to move, nausea rose up and paralyzed him in place.

And then someone stepped out from the vault beyond the doors.

It was not Juhani.


	16. Terms

_Terms_

Tongues of blueish-green light played across the polished walls of coruscating black marble like reflections off the surface of a gently disturbed pool. The fell light silhouetted a tall figure approaching Namenlos, hiding his face.

The air was thick and heavy, each breath a labor and movement a task close to impossible. The effort of keeping his lungs supplied with air made his heart pound and further inflamed the barbs of pain from his raging headache. Apprehension seized every muscle, locking him in place as the newcomer came closer.

As Namenlos' eyes adjusted and he could finally see the man's face, an icy curtain of dread descended on him. He felt naked without his knife.

The man was fearsome. Grayish-blue tattoos marked a bald head mounted on massive shoulders, clear, dangerous blue eyes blazed underneath the prominent brow, wide orbs of deceptive warmth on a face as pale as bone. A strong nose would have rounded out quite the handsome set of features, if not for the horror that was the rest of his face. But where should have been a mouth, a chin, a jaw, there was nothing. The entire lower portion of his face had been sheared away violently, leaving shards of splintered mandible and scraps of ligament and sinew hanging in air, lifeless yet seeming to have a life of their own. A hideous metal contraption was perched spiderlike over the gaping hole in his throat, pulsing with unknown energy.

Blood-red armor was molded like a second skin over his massive frame, a heavy battle cloak hung from his shoulders, a multitude of lightsabres on his wide belt. Bulging muscle flexed beneath it all. A mountainous man.

When, hardly a week ago, Bastila broke in on him and he was convinced she intended to kill him, Namenlos had felt the rush of such a primal terror that nothing mattered except escape. The fear he felt upon the advance of this monstrosity in human guise was easily a thousand times worse.

Yet, he could not force himself to so much as twitch.

Horribly, the disfigured man with the cruel eyes spoke, but not with the voice of a man. Instead, a dead, flat tone devoid of inflection or subtlety issued from the device that clung to his neck like a parasite.

"_You are a most resourceful and resilient character,_" said the abomination. His menacing eyes shone with such hostility that this lack of tone made little difference. "_But I should have expected as much, considering the sorts of plots you did so love to surround yourself with. I should have cut your head off myself._"

Namenlos thought in sudden panic that the scar on his face might split open and soak him with blood he hardly remembered. "What do you want?" he managed to whisper.

Then the thing laughed. It was an awful sound, like broken bones rattling against each other, grinding themselves to dust. The abomination-man put a palm to his face, as if incredulous at the question. "_I am Darth Malak, what else could I want?_"

The blood froze in Namenlos' veins.

Darth Malak; Lord of the Sith, champion of persecution.

"_It was my thought to show you the courtesy of an impartial death,_" the thing said in its terrible drone, "_but you foolishly chose to reject your fate, even knowing well your sin. You forsook our sacred vow, turned against the Crusade; you corrupted the Sith, would have thrown away everything for which we bled in the vain pursuit of some new thrill, or whatever your vile Cathar blood would bid you._" The thing that was Darth Malak clenched its fist, his glare seething with naked hate. "_It is the duty of the faithful to destroy you and your ilk, all who threaten the Crusade. Just as we swore._"

Even past the fear claiming each desperate pant of breath, Namenlos felt something click in his mind, a vital gap filling in. The thought detested him, but Darth Malak _knew_ him, knew the past to which he was blind. And if Malak's words were spoken true, he also knew how he'd lost that past.

He licked a drop of blood from the gap in his lips, wishing its sharp coppery taste could give him the answers he craved.

"You did this to me," Namenlos whispered in accusation. He somehow managed to clench his fist in defiance.

"_Of course I did!_" Malak shouted, vehemence in his bearing if not his voice. "_I should have done far worse to you, and I will yet! You should never have set foot on Dantooine, never laid eyes on another Conduit. But then, you never did think of them as anything more than your map to the Star Forge. Oh, but they are so much more than you ever thought. They guarantee that I will always find you!"_

While Malak threatened, Namenlos tried to get his limbs to move, but the act of putting tension on his muscles brought bile to his throat and an overpowering dizziness to his head. He just concentrated on the effort of breathing, managing another few sentences from sheer willpower.

"The Jedi know where I am. They hate you. You are going to die, Malak."

"_Are you truly so much of a fool, Arravin? The Jedi have no power over the Conduits!_" Malak said with a hiss from deep in his throat.

That name stuck in his head. He could not help but repeat in astonishment, "Arravin?"

As soon as he spoke, he knew it was a mistake, for an even crueler stare glazed over Malak's eyes. His dead voice rasped yet lower. "_Arravin Korsk; so you forget even your own name._"

Arravin Korsk was his true name. Namenlos felt almost disappointed, for there was no accompanying flood of returning memories, no new doors opened in his mind; just the gruesome knowledge that Darth Malak knew his name. Still, he now had a name, even if it meant nothing to him as yet. It was a start.

"I still remember how much I hate you," Namenlos lied.

"_Your hate alone will not save you,_" Malak's voice rumbled. "_You cannot fathom my powers. Soon you will stand before me and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are powerless against me. Then I will make you to realize the enormity of what I will take away from you; you will not die until your voice is gone for begging for death, until you have seen everyone you care about die in excruciating agony while you watch helpless. You will know exactly for what sins you die, and why the Crusade demands your sacrifice._"

Malak's words echoed in his mind, like some strange power taking over him. Already it seemed inevitable that they should come to pass. If it was indeed Malak who had left him scarred and without a mind, then Namenlos had no doubt he was capable of carrying out his threats. Life seemed destined to spiral into yet more hopeless misery than any he'd seen or experienced before; the absolute certainty of his demise, the utter vanquishing of his spirit, felt preordained.

And yet, Namenlos rebelled. Somehow, beneath the choking fear and terror, he salvaged anger, fury--hate. Malak was not his judge.

Once he found it, Namenlos let the rage run wild inside him, feeding it with his desire to be freed from this oppressive fear, and felt it invigorate him in recompense. Gathering power like an avalanching landslide, the sheer force of his hatred for this evil promise blasted away hesitation, doubt, fear itself. In place of that fear was left nothing but the strength to strike out without regard for himself, the will to die in the attempt to secure his own life.

The thickness of the air gave way like a pane of glass exploding outward in all directions.

Namenlos screamed as he suicidally leaped forward, reaching for Malak's throat, prepared to strangle him with his bare hands. He feared to take any lesser measures against a man who had once killed him and stood now again promising endless suffering to him and anyone he cared about.

His hands closed around nothing but air. Malak was gone, vanished as if he'd never existed.

The adrenaline burst sputtered and died. Namenlos found himself clutching his knees in sudden, total exhaustion, shaking from the rage and madness that burned at the precipice of all sanity. The threat was gone, but the commitment to fight, to kill without mercy, was present still, a storm with no headwinds to drive it away, and it wreaked its fury inside him.

Slowly, Namenlos drew himself back from the brink, asserted control over the storm, and gradually emerged from his shroud of lethal commitment.

The room was deserted where only moments before Darth Malak had stood. Namenlos sniffed the air and realized that he could not detect a single trace that would indicate a presence had ever shared the room with him, certainly not one sure to be endowed with so many exotic odors from the grotesque wounds and surgeries Malak displayed.

The encounter had shaken him badly. Either he had imagined it, or Juhani was correct, and there truly was an evil presence haunting the temple. Or perhaps it was something else. Malak's mention of "Conduits" stood out oddly, as if it should mean something.

Namenlos was almost spooked enough to turn and flee, take his chances with any of the Jedi who might be lurking about. But he stopped when a familiar scent caught his attention and he realized would be leaving someone behind; Juhani. She was close.

Remembering her ideas of the Dark Side, Namenlos concluded she was more vulnerable to Malak's sick promises than even him. There was no telling what horrors he might have promised her; they'd been separated for too long.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Namenlos stepped into the room of black marble beyond the doors, where he knew she had to be.

First to draw his eye was the pyramidal device which stood in the center of the room, bathing it in liquid light. Unbidden, Malak's references to a "Conduit" sparked something in his memory, telling him he should remember this, but nothing of any import would come to mind.

Then he found her; a pitiful-looking figure heaped senseless in a corner. His heart lurched as for an instant he thought she might be dead, but the strong beat of her pulse suggested otherwise. His anger flared again at what Malak must have done to her. She'd already suffered too much, and at the hands of those who should have nurtured her.

A movement momentarily caught his attention; the device behind him folding up around itself, extinguishing its light and becoming dark as the stone around them. Perhaps the Conduit closing, Namenlos conjectured.

He decided it would be best if they both got out of the temple. He liked the place no longer. Without another moment's delay, Namenlos levered Juhani upright, slung her arm over his shoulder and swept his other arm beneath her legs to hoist her up. She mumbled something deliriously as he exited the marble chamber, shuffled past the standing columns, and into the large hallway with the enormous skylights.

"Please, dear Master," he heard her murmur. "I want to return to the Light."

Namenlos checked down the hall to both sides, keeping alert for Jedi--or Malak, should he appear again. He looked down at the woman he held in his arms, and wondered if he would be watching her scream in torture if Malak caught him. Anger swelled up inside him at the thought.

"Whatever he said to you, Juhani, I swear I'll protect you. I swear it."

* * *

He could tell he was getting closer to the outside edge of the building just from how much fresher the air tasted compared to its musty staleness much deeper in the structure. He caught snatches of light from windows set high in the walls, but they were of no help in figuring out where he was. On more than one occasion he got the distinct impression that he had somehow traveled upward and was somewhere on one of the temple's upper levels.

His arms were getting sore from carrying Juhani, but he dared not stop moving, even for a short break. The headache was a dull throb at the back of his skull, a minor but growing annoyance. He'd been walking for close to an hour, but instinctual urgency continued prodding him forward.

Namenlos approached a wide, gently spiraling staircase when he felt it hit him with all the subtlety of an avalanche.

As if the air itself were become solid and moving, he was struck in the back hard by an undefinable force. He tumbled forward, losing his balance and careening down the steps. Juhani flew from his arms like an unstrung puppet as he fell. For some reason, he never thought to put his hands out to protect himself as he slammed into the smooth gray marble steps, or to attempt to break his slide as he crashed down a few dozen steps onto a landing.

He groaned and tried to feel his head, but he found that he was numb all over and couldn't make his limbs work. His face lying sideways on the floor, he could just make out Juhani's boot on the floor near him, but had no idea if she was okay.

Namenlos had no idea if _he _was okay. It occurred to him that he wasn't even sure what okay meant.

Somehow, he managed to lever his torso up off the floor a few inches by blindly pushing down with both arms, and was able to reposition his head slightly before his hands slipped and he fell back down again. Now he could see partially up the stairs. He dimly became aware of blood dripping from his face where he must have bashed it into the marble, but he could barely make himself think hard enough to care about it.

He saw something coming down the stairs, but every time he managed to focus on it, it had moved again, resulting in a ghostly blur he could not hope to identify. All his senses were lagging, like his mind couldn't process the information fast enough. Even forming coherent thought was close to impossible.

A garbled series of sounds reached his ears from somewhere above him. He couldn't make out any words, but he did finally manage to finish an unrelated thought; Jedi.

Panic gripped him,finally spurring him into action. The fog of his vision started to clear, he felt tentative control return to his arms and legs, coherence to his mind. He'd just been attacked by Jedi, now was the time to run. He'd started scrambling to his feet when something brushed his neck and stopped him dead in his tracks.

He felt the unwelcome embrace of a leather collar on his neck.

Hate and fury pounded through him at having been so easily played as he looked up and saw Jedi Master Vrook sneering down at him. With a snarl, Namenlos hurled himself at the arrogant despot. The instant he did so, however, he felt an agony white-hot exploding from a line around his neck, sinking all the way down to his toes as it bathed him in flames of suffering. A scream tore itself from his throat and he collapsed onto his back, paralyzed by the pain ripping through every limb, every vein, and every cell in his body.

Somewhere, beyond his personal world of pain, he heard Vrook speaking. "This is only a sampling of what we are willing to do if you fail to cooperate. Assaulting another Jedi, or an ally, is a capital offense; you only bring this on yourself by your foolish actions."

Suddenly, the pain vanished as if a faucet somewhere inside him had been closed, and Namenlos greedily gulped in a sigh of relief.

"Get up," Vrook barked. Namenlos found himself doing it without question.

He stared dumbly at the floor while Vrook _tsk_ed and other people - he didn't care to look and see who – closed around him and Vrook. For the moment Namenlos didn't care about anything; he was so glad the pain had stopped that he didn't want to tarnish his relief with thoughts of the resumption of his Jedi captivity.

Nothing seemed to matter anymore. They were going to hurt him as much as they thought they needed to until he did what they wanted, thought what they wanted, and believed what they wanted. And nothing he could ever do would change that. If the fall seemed to have evaporated his ability to think, the collar had the same effect on his will. It was lost somewhere and he couldn't get it back, not now that the Jedi again held his leash.

Namenlos saw someone in orange go past him. He ignored the impulse to turn and look because he just didn't care. His life was over before it could begin.

His head snapped up when he saw the man dragging Juhani. He looked at him now; Carth Onasi, murderer. He had Juhani.

Anger surged to the surface in him.

Perhaps his life was over, but hers didn't have to be.

Namenlos finally took notice of the people around him. With the exception of Carth, they were all Jedi. He did not recognize their stony faces, but saw that they were all well-armed. Juhani was groggy but conscious, arms pinned behind her back by Carth.

"Let her go," Namenlos ordered. Heads swiveled, Carth's eyes blazed daringly at him.

"She's dangerous," Carth retorted. "Don't tell me this one's innocent too."

Carth glared at him, Vrook glared at him, the other Jedi regarded him with stoic expressions and hands near lightsabres. Namenlos felt a trickle of warning pain creeping through him, threatening to close the fence around him again, keep him cowering and helpless. It would have worked too, had he not been so furious at not only being put back in his prison, but to see Juhani being delivered back into the hands of those who had raped her mind. The depth of this callousness burned at his mind until he could feel nothing but hate.

"Let her go, Onasi," he growled again. "Let--her--_go!_"

A thread pain hummed from the collar. Namenlos ignored it, the hot flames of his anger not to be denied.

"Juhani has fallen to the Dark Side," Vrook pronounced. "She will be brought back to the Enclave where the Council will decide her fate. This has gone on long enough."

Namenlos moved. He lunged for Carth, extending hands and sharpened nails, doing the only thing he could think of in his hopeless situation; attack.

The pain brought him up short before he even made it halfway. Screaming, he hit the floor again as agony poured through his body, worse than anything that had been done to him before. He felt like every limb had been frozen in ice and set on fire as they were hacked apart.

Shaking as if he'd been struck by lightning, he set his teeth against the pain and struggled to get to his feet. Every tiny little bit of movement only made the pain worse, his continued resistance raising the agony to landscapes of suffering he'd not even known existed, but he refused to yield. With monumental effort, he put one foot beneath him and began working on the second, fists clenched so tight that trickles of blood ran from his palms, where nails dug in with vise-like force.

All breath had long left his lungs, he could barely breathe in past the choking pain, but still he would not yield. He felt Vrook's desperation, endured the assault of ever-increasing agony, but despite it all he finally managed to stand. The pain, the hate, the anger, everything ran together into one long, horrible scream inside his soul as he continued to fight the collar's control, refusing to concede defeat. Any suffering, any agony he had to endure for his convictions, he would suffer it as long as there was breath in his body.

With the realization came a greater epiphany. Two halves of something joined together inside him. A counter to the void unleashed itself in his mind, in the very core of his being, and he knew with certainty what he had to do.

Namenlos stood up straight, fists out to his sides, and drew in a long breath of air, asserting control over his body. The firestorm of agony from the collar shriveled like a headless snake.

He opened his eyes, which had been squeezed shut against the pain, and leveled a hot glare at Vrook. The Jedi Master's eyes widened in shock and surprise and he took a few hasty steps back. The collar snapped in two and fell to the ground, irrelevant.

Free at last, he leaped forward faster than any of the Jedi could react, wrapped his arm around Carth's neck, and hurled him with the strength of his rage unleashed. As Carth flew backward, Juhani fell to her hands and knees. Namenlos crouched protectively over her while the Jedi closed ranks around him, drawing their lightsabres.

"Stop!" Vrook called out. "I will handle this myself." Gritting his teeth, he extended a hand toward Namenlos.

He felt pressure building around his throat and immediately recognized what the Jedi was doing. But he was still in control. He locked glares with the man and resolutely denied him control, focused his determination and anger into the need to repel Vrook's attack. The air crackled with energy, hairline fractures of the marble floor radiated out in a web around him as he fought. With a snarl, he pushed _back_, staggering Vrook once more.

"No one touches her!" Namenlos yelled. Juhani was on her feet, and he moved to keep himself between the Jedi and her. A circle of grim-faced Jedi surrounded them both, blue, green, and yellow blades barring all escape.

"Take them," Vrook ordered.

Namenlos tensed his muscles in preparation for the attack. There was a loud crack as a fissure opened up at his feet. He was prepared to kill if they came at him; he _would_ kill if they came at Juhani.

His eyes tracked the first one who started to move. He wet his lips with his tongue in anticipation, hungering for the fight to begin.

* * *

"Wait!" Bastila screamed at the top of her lungs. She ran as as fast as she could, hoping she was not too late.

She had told the Council where to find Revan, which was, in retrospect, precisely the wrong thing to do. Bastila was beginning to understand what she had done wrong with Revan the first time, and also coming to realize that such harsh measures were frankly no longer necessary. There was a bond between them, she could not dispute the fact; she could already sense his location and was starting to see fragments of his lost memory, which meant the Device Of Bonding was no longer needed to keep his gift in check. She could do that herself, merely by proximity.

The collar had served its purpose, now she had only to reach him. But the Council wanted Revan under their control more than they wished to help him, and perhaps rightly so. After reading through Revan's past, however, Bastila knew that such measures would only cause harm.

If Revan was ever to truly convert to the Jedi cause, he would not do so under the threat of pain or punishment; he had proven that years ago, preferring to abandon the Order when he felt they no longer respected his rights as an individual. He had to be convinced that their cause was his cause, not forced to accept it by bludgeoning, which was what the collar meant to him.

Bastila prayed she was not too late to set things right, or at least make the attempt.

"Wait!" she cried as she reached the ring of armed Jedi. Namenlos stood at the points of their lightsabres, and Bastila could tell he was coiled to strike. He was using his body to shield someone else, whom Bastila saw to be Juhani upon coming closer.

She knew she had to dispel this confrontation before it turned ugly. Revan would be more than willing to kill if he was pushed hard enough, and this was pushing him pretty hard.

Vrook's face turned a deep red. "Padawan Bastila, this does not concern--"

Bastila quickly brushed him by, directing her words directly to the Jedi surrounding the two Cathar. Juhani met her eyes with a questioning stare. Bastila had not expected to ever see her again.

"Put your weapons away immediately," she instructed the Jedi.

"Bastila!" Vrook bellowed, livid. "You have no idea of what you are doing!"

Bastila gave him a level stare. "Master, forgive me, but in this I must intrude on the Council's jurisdiction." She gave Namenlos a sideways glance. "I believe we have been dealing with him improperly. You must not put the collar back on him."

"It has already been done. He has countered it somehow."

"What?" For an awful moment Bastila reeled in confusion and horror, until her eye caught the two torn halves of leather lying on the floor at Namenlos' feet. A ripple of relief washed over her. "Oh." The faintest hint of a smile lifted the corner of her mouth, a gesture of understanding that did not go unnoticed by Namenlos. He gave her a small nod of acknowledgment.

She turned back to face Vrook. "Well, in any case, we can't control him, with or without the collar. The Jedi way will not permit it."

Vrook was apoplectic with rage. "You would think to question--"

"I am not 'questioning' anything, Master Vrook," Bastila snapped. "I am following the laws of the Jedi as they have been passed down over the millennia, as I have been taught by you and the Council for years. We are not permitted to impose our will over him as we have been doing; if we do, then we are no better than those we fight against."

"Do not meddle in things beyond your understanding, Padawan," Vrook growled.

"It is perfectly within my understanding, Master. It was my error that instigated this unfortunate situation, and so it is my responsibility to make it right. Namenlos will come peacefully, without the need for our threats or manipulations." She gave him an expectant look, hoping she was right about him. "You value your life, and your right to continue living it, am I correct?"

He nodded cautiously. "You are."

"And you know you will die without our help?"

He answered with a hesitant "Yes."

This was where she had to be delicate, let him know that she would not force him into this decision, a decision that needed to be his alone. If he realized that it truly was in his best interest to continue accepting Jedi teaching, then they could work from there. If he didn't... Bastila was sure she would never again have to ponder how to be a better Jedi; she would never get the chance.

"Then will you allow us to continue helping you learn to control your power?"

Namenlos stared at her long and hard, as if to tell her that, while he appreciated her interceding, there could be no misunderstanding of what he was about to say. His tone was flat and straightforward. "If you understand that I will not bend my convictions to fit your doctrines, I would be more than happy to learn to keep the Force from killing me. But I am not moving until you also understand something else." He glared at all those present. "This woman with me, Juhani, is my friend, and what is done against her is done against me."

"Pah!" Vrook huffed. "Such ignorance! She has violated the Jedi Code and severely wounded a Master in doing so. Such deeds cannot go unpunished."

"She broke a law you have no business enforcing!" Namenlos snarled. "You tried to take her will, turn her into a drone that would do nothing but what you told her. If you would think to punish her for valuing the life of an innocent victim over the evildoers who brutalized her, I will kill you."

Bastila held her breath, watching, unable to do more. She had presented the side of reason, hoping to avert hostility, but ultimately, if Vrook overruled her, there was nothing more she could do. Nothing more short of outright mutiny, but she was not nearly to that point yet. Namenlos had caused her to question the absolute authority of the Jedi Council, but she still had to consider the fact that he was, in actuality, Darth Revan, and responsible for untold millions of deaths. She was not prepared to turn on everything she'd ever been taught in order to rise to his defense; she could not justify it to herself.

Vrook's expression was unreadable. He was silent for a long time before he spoke again in an even tone, without a trace of his earlier contentiousness. "Juhani is fortunate to have found such a stalwart and intransigent friend as yourself. She is fortunate also that Master Quatra was not killed by her rash and reckless actions during her training."

Bastila heard Juhani cry out in abject relief, and realized that, all this time, she had probably believed she'd killed her. She took note of Namenlos, who relaxed his body the slightest bit. She breathed a thankful sigh.

Vrook continued, his face impassive. "She will have to work long and hard to regain the esteem of her teachers, but if she is sufficiently committed, Juhani may yet find her place among the Jedi. And then there is the matter of you. Quite obviously you will have to be kept away from... certain other individuals." Bastila cast an involuntary glance at Carth, to whom she knew Vrook was referring. The Republic man was favoring his neck, which Namenlos had used to forcibly hurl him to the floor.

"An outburst such as this must be followed by severe disciplinary action. You must still accept responsibility for your actions here."

Namenlos fearlessly met the Jedi's iron eyes and said, without qualm, "I accept your terms."

Only then could Bastila again breathe easy.


	17. The Executioner's Shroud

_The Executioner's Shroud_

A storm was coming, Komad could feel it in his rheumatic bones. Every time his left leg seized up the way it did now it meant a particularly nasty sandstorm was about to blow in from the Dune Sea, either from the deep south, where even sand fleas were hard-pressed to survive, or from the east; dragon territory. There was a particular skull hanging on his wall - that of a juvenile krayt, and quite small by dragon standards - that seemed to concur with his conclusion. The bike-sized skull stared in mute agreement, as it always did.

He still remembered that beast well, it had been quite the hunt.

Komad Fortuna had a collection of exotic skulls to rival that of any hunter from the Core, and he remembered _all _their stories quite well. Or, at least most of them. Age had muddled a few, but he could point out many, many fascinating anecdotes about various wraid plates, stuffed maalraas heads, a treated piece of drexl hide, a prized spike from the tail of a zakkeg; the trophies of many great hunts past that covered the walls of his simple dwelling.

For close to five decades he had subsisted in seclusion with nothing to keep him company but this eclectic assortment of hunter's memorabilia. He relied on his beloved trophies for everything from moral support to clairvoyance, for few visitors graced his dwelling; he lived separated from Anchorhead, Tatooine's only official colony, by that great neutral zone known as Sand People land. That meant he was also beyond the range most "official" communications channels, so he had his old bones to tell him the weather.

Curse the foul sandstorm!

He had probably another hour and a half, perhaps two, before conditions became untenable outside. Not nearly enough time to make another trip to his special cave.

It would be only a few trips more to get the last pieces from the old dragon lair. There'd been some quite interesting things to find after luring the old beast from the cave, and that was without mentioning the two exquisite pearls. One had sold at Anchorhead - during one of his rare visits to that awful place - for a hefty sum of credits and plenty of supplies to last him for a good long time as long as he kept the vaporators running and bolstered his larder with traditional desert fare.

But that cave was an interesting find indeed!

Komad had long knew the old beast took that particular cave because it was not a cave at all, it was the skeleton of a grand plaza that had been buried by sediment over the centuries and carved out by the windblown sands. For years he waited for an opportunity to explore that lair, and finally it came. The creature was old, nearly the size of a small cruiser, hungry all the time, and losing it in the head. For a hunter of Komad's talents, it was an easy kill.

What he found inside exceeded his wildest imaginings. Aside from thousands of bones left over from the dragon's many meals, Komad unearthed a trove of intriguing artifacts, some intact, others not, but all intriguing.

It was close to a decade - or was it longer? - since his friend on Kashyyyk had asked him to keep his desert eyes alert for such things. What a find this was! It was everything he had been hoping to find. After dealing with the dragon, Komad had spent four solid days removing everything he could to his small lodge, where he meticulously cataloged and examined each artifact while sandstorms raged for the better part of the next week. When the weather broke, Komad had turned to the task of transporting the largest of the artifacts; a pyramidal sculpture that, from his understanding of the rough layout of the ancient plaza, would have stood at the very center of the converging avenues. It was obviously important, and he spent more time studying this piece than any of the others. Especially after recent correspondence with Kashyyyk.

Of course, since spending so much time on the strange pyramid, he had missed his chance to go back for the few things still left that he could remove. With a storm was bearing down on him he would likely have to wait it out for what could easily be weeks. This close to the Dune Sea, a sandstorm that lasted for less than five days was considered very brief indeed.

The old Twi'lek stretched his arthritic legs and got to his feet. He stroked the muzzle of the krayt dragon skull briefly. "Guess it's time for ol' Komad to button up his vaporators for the storm. We wouldn't want to be drinking sand and oil for three weeks, now would we?" he said to the skull in his native Huttese, then chuckled to himself and headed for the door. The last time he'd forgotten to shut the accursed machines down in a sandstorm, he'd had to rely on mostly his stock of cheap Gungan beer to avoid drinking the horrible water they produced for a good eleven days afterward. That was one hangover he'd thought would surely kill him.

Komad's whole leg suddenly shuddered, something it never did unless there was something seriously amiss. It was usually a sign of his old Jedi training trying to kick in, but fifty-five odd years out of the business had made him pretty good at ignoring it, except for during dire situations.

It was a sign that something was definitely wrong, and it had nothing to do with any sandstorm.

Komad wearily opened the door, already having a pretty good idea of what he'd find. And sure enough, he was right.

Garbed in black from head to toe, the man had the look of a wolf about him. A bald head emphasized burning brown eyes and a thick goatee. An ugly red, sinuous tattoo decorated his neck and the underside of his chin, making him look like his throat was cut open, the effect of which serving to unnerve Komad more than anything else about him.

Komad sighed. "I guess it was about time."

The answer was a laconic stare. The man had no idea what he'd just said.

Realizing his mistake, Komad belatedly switched to Basic, annoyed that the Sith couldn't be bothered to send someone who understood his native tongue. "I said it was probably about time Malak sent someone. What's your name? Does he still give his followers names?"

"Bandon," was the terse reply.

"Well, won't you come in?"

Bandon stared at him without emotion. "It's time, old man."

"The name's Komad," he reminded the man, waving a finger as he walked back into the house. He laid a hand on the krayt's cool skull. It seemed to understand. "So, Malak sent you to kill me?"

"The Crusade demands it."

"Pah! Are you all always so melodramatic?" Komad scoffed. He threw his arms about exaggeratedly. "Crusade this, jihad that! I think the theatrics distract you from the fact that all you ever manage to do is kill a lot of people and still accomplish exactly nothing."

Suddenly, Bandon's ghoulish form came closer. Komad hadn't seen him move, he just seemed to... _waft_ across the room, like a thing of dream. In the lower light, the red tattoo on his throat somehow glowed, the contrast making his face even paler. He looked like the avatar of death itself.

"Malak's Crusade will bring about a freer society than the Jedi would ever permit to exist.

Everyone will be allowed to chart their own lives, and be given the same opportunities to rise above their wretched existence as everyone else. There will be fairness and equity that never existed in the Republic."

"A noble goal," Komad said softly. "A goal you cannot even see you will never reach. It is quite a shame."

"Shut up, old man," Bandon said crossly, exhibiting the first emotion Komad had seen from him. "Your time has come."

Bandon raised his hands. White and purple light exploded through the house.

* * *

"How is he today?" Bastila asked the Jedi on guard as she approached the door to Namenlos' room.

The woman shrugged passively. "He took his meal, inquired about Padawan Juhani, and said nothing else. He is docile."

"Do not be lulled by the calm," Bastila warned the guard. "He fought Master Vrook to a standstill with hardly a week of formal training under his belt. He could become violent at any moment."

"With respect, Padawan Bastila, is it then wise for you to go in alone?" the Jedi asked, disturbed.

"He and I are at an accord," Bastila answered truthfully, though leaving out the exact specifics, as she was not sure of them herself. "You must only be sure that you do not let him leave your sight unless I am with him."

The Jedi bowed her head, deferring to Bastila's judgment. "Of course."

Satisfied she'd been understood, Bastila passed her hand over the door console to unlock it and stepped inside.

When not in training, Namenlos – Revan, she reminded herself – most often preferred to be in the library, so Bastila had not had much cause to see the inside of his quarters. Now, since the Council had ruled that he be confined to them "until such time as he is no longer potentially contagious", training sessions could take place nowhere _but _his quarters, and Bastila saw how much he had made the small space his own in the past week.

Linens covered much of the walls, a different archaic character decorating each one, some looking to have been drawn in blood, others in calligraphic ink. If the four walls were stretched out into a single flat surface, Bastila knew the progression of symbols would have definite meaning. The effect was strikingly familiar; it was something Juhani had been doing for years, albeit less dramatically. She used simple, nondescript symbology; a whorl in a desklamp here, a cross and arc on a pillow there. Nothing like this.

The single spare bedframe was moved away to the side, the mattress and bedding arranged in a rough circle in a corner, leaving the center of the room empty. The other intrusion into the symmetry of his arrangement was the small desk along the wall, filling a space where he had hung no esoteric banner. He sat there now, probably absorbed in his interminable reading.

Nevertheless, Namenlos looked up when she entered, apparently not so out of touch as not to notice when the door opened. His garnet eyes immediately locked onto her, scrutinizing her with such intensity that Bastila could not help but remember the way his mask had seemed to suck the courage from her when she confronted him on the bridge of his cruiser, some months ago. The memory was disturbing as ever, and even more so because he was completely unaware that it had ever happened.

"Is Vrook satisfied with my imprisonment?" he asked in a perfectly flat voice, without a trace of bitterness.

"It is not--" she started to say, but his look made her question what sense the statement made.

"No, it really is," he rejoined. "They can't have their collar on me, so they want me locked up."

Bastila didn't know what to say. "I--"

Surprisingly, Namenlos merely shrugged and seemed to brush the subject aside. "But this wasn't of your choice. It was mine. How is Juhani?" At his question, Bastila found her tongue once more, remembering the chief reason she was here in the first place.

"She asked me to personally thank you for her. The Council have accepted her back as a servant of the Light, and even now she works to continually better herself and her fellow Jedi." She paused. "Namenlos, I want to know what happened between you and her. Juhani had fallen to the Dark Side, how did you convince her to return to the Jedi?"

Namenlos got up from his reading and paced. "She didn't fall, Bastila," he answered simply. "I hope that is what I made her realize."

"Namenlos, that is not possible. She struck out against Master Quatra in hatred. She gave in to her base passions. This is what we are taught is the very essence of the fall to the Dark Side."

"Bastila, you don't know the whole story. When Quatra was 'training' her, she forced Juhani to relive the memory of watching her mother get beaten and raped by a gang of criminals on Taris. While she thought she was defending her mother, Juhani ended up stabbing her master with a lightsabre." He glared venomously. "If anyone was at fault, it was Quatra! Juhani did everything you Jedi asked of her, and for it you decided that she'd fallen to this 'Dark Side'."

Bastila was speechless. "But--if she struck in anger..."

"Your Jedi laws are wrong, Bastila."

This was dangerous. Bastila could hardly believe how convincing his argument was. She was beginning to stray dangerously close to accepting it. "Namenlos, I have already questioned the authority of the Council for you. Please don't now ask me to turn my back on the whole of the Jedi teachings, it is hard enough for me as it is."

"Well, you have my thanks for stepping in when you did."

He had not backed down, but sensing her opportunity to change the subject, Bastila jumped for it. "I will speak to Vandar and Zhar and ask that your confinement be repealed. In the meantime, we should continue your training. Meditation will help bring your gift into focus, and allow me to guide you and help with your headaches, absent the Device of Bonding."

He looked at her questioningly. "I don't think I get the headaches anymore."

"Of course you do. You still have much to learn, without the collar I must use my own gift to help balance yours."

Namenlos scowled at her in mild irritation. "Whatever you say."

"It will not take long," Bastila assured him, "and it will keep the headaches from you indefinitely, as long as I am close enough to affect your aura."

Namenlos sighed and sat on the floor across from her, as they always did. Bastila scooted forward until their knees touched and grasped his hands. Unlike before, however, instead of reaching for her connection to his collar – the collar he'd ripped from his neck with sheer force of will – she touched his troubled aura directly.

It was stronger than before, and... different somehow. The aberrant vibrations radiating from him were still as chaotic as they had ever been, but they seemed more conscious than before. They stirred things inside her, triggering a vivid recollection...

_"Um, hello."_

_The greeting surprised her. Everyone knew to leave her alone, she was not a social creature and had little or nothing to say when someone tried to engage her in conversation. She simply studied, practiced, ate, and slept. And after some twenty-odd years, all the students of note had learned that she just didn't interact with others and left it at that._

_He was probably new to Dantooine, didn't know her reputation well enough yet to know she was not the most rewarding person in the Academy with which to pursue a friendship. She couldn't make friends with other Jedi, it simply did not happen. The students didn't try, the masters - even her own - had given up._

_"Can I join you?" he asked. In her musings, she'd forgotten he was there._

_She looked at him pointedly. He was tall, probably taller than her by at least six inches, with a frame that made him look like he could wrestle a rancor. He seemed friendly enough, though. What could it hurt, except for his foolish expectations?_

_She nodded her permission._

_He gave a congenial smile. "I'm Alek."_

A high-pitched whine and a sudden shock of violence screaming through the Force ripped Bastila from the alien memory. Her eyes snapped open as the howl of a massive concussion reverberated through the entire building.

It took her only a second to realize what it was. Terror-bombing.

The Sith had found Dantooine.

* * *

The first violent tremors shook Mission from her perch on the bunk, sent her tumbling to the floor. At first she couldn't figure out what was going on. One moment she cleaning her blaster for the hundredth time, the next she was flat on her face, deafened by a horrendous roar and near to throwing up from the twisting knot in her stomach. She knew exactly what felt like this.

Bombs dropped indifferently, not caring whether the things they torched were buildings of glass and steel or bodies of flesh and bone. The smoke alone was unmistakable, she could smell it already inside the ship, even with all its sophisticated air-scrubbers and filtration systems.

It was like Taris all over again.

A thousand panicked thoughts ran through Mission's head as she scrambled to her feet. She wanted to run, to scream until her lungs hurt and then scream some more, but she knew neither would do her any good.

Think! Mission forced herself to think. Griff had taught her never to let herself be paralyzed by fear, even if she was thrown into a situation for which she had no preparation. He'd say that fear was good, because it meant you cared enough about yourself to be afraid to die, but that too much of it would do a lot more harm than good. She needed to use her fear to keep herself alive, not to tie herself down for her executioners.

The _Ebon Hawk _rocked with another colossal blast, but this time Mission grabbed the bulkhead to steady herself and quickly dashed out into the main hold. She screamed for Zaalbar and immediately the Wookiee poked his head into the room, crouching in a defensive posture as he clutched a door frame to brace himself.

"_What is going on, Mission?_" he asked.

"I don't know!" she yelled back. "Find Carth, we need to get Bastila!"

"The heck we do!" roared Carth, who came charging in from the cargo bay. "This is a Sith tactical strike; we're getting the frack out of here!"

He started to rush for the cockpit, and Mission panicked.

"Oh no you're not, Carth!" she yelled in desperation. "You're not going anywhere!"

Carth turned a glare on her. "Look kid, you have no idea what it's like when the Sith bomb a--"  
"Yes I do!" Mission shrieked. "I was on Taris, don't you _dare_ tell me I haven't seen what happens! We're going to get Bastila and Namenlos!"

Carth curled his lip in distaste. "I'm sure the Jedi Council will take good care of him, that seems to be what they're best at," he snarled. "Now if there are no complaints, I'm going to save our skins."

"No you're not, Carth!" Mission yelled after him, desperate to stop him. She couldn't leave without Namenlos, she wouldn't. "Not since I locked you out of the _Hawk_'s systems!"

Again Carth stopped in his tracks. "What!"

The bluff had to work. She had to keep him angry, keep him disadvantaged, so that he couldn't see through her desperation. "That's right, I locked you out. Now we're going to get Bastila and Namenlos," Mission repeated as another bomb blast echoed through the ship.

Carth's face contorted with fury. "Why you backstabbing little--!"

Out of nowhere, a massive fist clobbered Carth before he could finish his epithet. The hulking figure of Canderous Ordo leaned over the dazed Republic pilot. "Now you're showing some spirit, Onasi!" he chuckled. Carth glowered. "But it looks like you'll just have to do what the girl says."

Mission sighed in relief. "Thanks, Canderous," she said quickly.

The Mandalorian nodded. "It's your show, kid."

_Think!_

Mission set her jaw with determination. "Ok, Carth, now we're going to go get Bastila and Namenlos. Then we can go." Carth grumbled, but reluctantly agreed.

Outside, it was even worse than she'd remembered. The instant the ramp opened, she was hit full force by the choking stench. Black smoke billowed from blazing craters and torches of living flesh writhing and screaming in inconceivable agony, soon to join the charred remains of those already dead. Dashing in every direction to escape the flaming debris dropping from the sky from the backlash of each blast, bystanders formed a panicked mob. Blinded by the smoke, people stumbled forward at a breakneck pace, heedlessly trampling those who could not keep to their feet.

The whine of incoming missiles sounded loudly, the incumbent promise of yet more horrific death fueling the mass hysteria as their small group forged into the pandemonium. Canderous and Zaalbar angled themselves in front of Mission and Carth, shoving and sometimes clubbing people out of the way to keep from being run down by the mob of terrified citizens. The only thing Mission could think of was Taris. This was exactly how her home planet had met its end; in sickening bouts of unimaginable violence.

The academy had been hit hard. Many of the smaller auxiliary buildings were reduced to broken skeletons by the thickly clustered bomb blasts which had torn through the whole complex. The large main building was still holding together, but fierce fires burned as evidence it had not been excluded from the carnage. Jedi and civilians ran in all directions, but Mission did not see Bastila among them.

"We can't go in there, it's suicide!" Carth protested, and Mission agreed with him. It was incredibly doubtful anyone inside was still alive, but she was not going to leave Namenlos here, in the midst of all this. He'd gotten her off Taris when Malak bombed it; now she was going to rescue _him_.

"We have to!" she yelled, and to prove her resolve dashed in the shattered main entrance, daring them to follow. She heard Zaalbar and Canderous hustle after her, then Carth cursed and ran to catch up.

Inside was a mixture of hellish inferno and surreal normalcy. Mission tried to stick to the parts of the building where there was a deceptive calm, only for the raging fires to appear in the most unexpected places. She found herself ducking under a ceiling engulfed in flames, hugging the floor to stay closer to clear air.

Crawling on her hands and knees, smoke stinging her eyes, Mission had to feel her way forward while the building rocked and shook with every impact of another bomb outside. The building's framework would groan when one hit particularly close; a horrible noise of screeching steel straining against foundations which held it tenaciously, at least for the time being.

The intense heat drenched her in sweat, she'd lost track of the others and could only hope they were still all together. It seemed like she'd spent a week in the burning building when Mission dragged herself from the blaze and into what had once been a place of congregating.

The floor was littered with severed arms, legs, and other, unidentifiable pieces of bodies. Mission fought the overwhelming urge to vomit. Canderous, Carth, and Zaalbar came up behind her; they'd all made it.

Pieces of the floors above covered everything in sight, the distant crackle of fires was the constant soundtrack. Mission shivered involuntarily, cold after having been in such heat. The sheer burntness saturated her nostrils, making her think she might never smell anything but charred wall paneling and melted tiles again.

Voices reached her ears. Worried, frantic voices, laced with desperation and fear so thick it was like a punch in the gut. The source, Mission saw, was close to where a section of the floor directly above had crashed down, spanning the whole breadth of the room and sealing off a large passageway that must have led to other parts of the building. Beams that once supported the giant slab showed through in places where the floor had disintegrated, letting the wicked red light of fires beyond silhouette the figures Mission saw crowded around one such meager opening.

She ran up to them and found Bastila with two small children and another Jedi woman, a fifth figure straining mightily to widen the narrow space in the fallen floor and reach through to the other side. Mission recognized Namenlos even from behind.

"What are you doing?" Mission almost shrieked. "We have to get out of here!"

Bastila had gathered the children behind her and cast concerned glances at Namenlos and the other woman who stood close by; she was the one speaking urgently to Namenlos in strange words Mission didn't understand.

"There are still Jedi trapped inside," Bastila said helplessly. Her face was streaked with ash and sweat, and she looked to be beyond the point of desperation. Mission had never seen the Jedi so distressed.

Mission heard cries from beyond the barricade of debris and realized in a sudden wash of comprehension that Namenlos was never going to be able to get through. The other woman was pleading with him, trying to make him stop fighting a battle he could not win, but he doggedly persisted, attempting to shove aside a mound of steel and crete that weighed in the tons. He shouted something the Mission was sure was a curse in a different language.

"Hold on!" Namenlos bellowed to the person on the other side. "I'm going to get you out of there, Belaya! Just hold on!"

There was an ear-splitting scream, stretching out in a long torturous note that burned itself into Mission's soul. Tears streamed down Bastila's face as she turned to the other Jedi and said, "Get him away from there, Juhani, she is gone."

"No!" Namenlos howled. Impotent, he pounded on the unyielding barrier with his fists.

Juhani tugged at him. "There is nothing more you can do. We must leave!"

Namenlos hung his head as he backed numbly away from the wall of rubble, flames starting to lick at its fringes. His face was as haggard and grimy as Bastila's. He'd given his all into the effort and it had not been enough. "I could have saved her. I could have saved her."

* * *

"We must get out of here quickly!" Bastila said, putting Belaya from her mind.

"Brilliant!" Carth, somewhere in the back, exclaimed with much gusto. "I don't suppose you'd have any plans as to how we're to do that?"

"We will have to find a passage where the fires have not yet spread," Bastila answered, her mind racing, bringing up her mental map of the building.

One of the Younglings tugged at her arm. "This way, there's no fire!" She looked in the direction the young boy pointed; it was toward the basement and storage areas. It had not yet caught on fire, but if the flames spread too fast behind them or above them, all the air in those low passages would soon be consumed and they could suffocate. Still, it was the only way out.

Bastila nodded to the others and headed off. Later she would have time to worry why Mission, Carth, the Wookiee, andthe Mandalorian had all come _into _the burning building, but at the moment she blocked out those thoughts and focused her mind on the task of getting them all safely _out_. She'd already failed six other Jedi trapped by the debris and the fires which spread too unnaturally fast for her ability to quell it.

She and Namenlos had only chanced upon the two Younglings, miraculously spared from the death that had claimed their twentysome classmates and four teachers. Other Jedi, like Belaya, neither she nor Namenlos could reach in time. Bastila could plainly see that each death pained him deeply, and each time he threw more of himself into the attempt to save another life.

But despite their efforts, Jedi continued to die. She had now only one duty: to get those that remained to safety.

Down in the basement levels, the lights had all cut out, so Bastila lit her lightsabre to illuminate the spartan halls. Apart from the rumbling of the ground, the distant screams, and her own adrenaline-fueled state of hyperalertness, the empty tunnels seemed distant and separate from the confusion and destruction which reigned above ground. The air even still contained its distinctive cool granite smell.

They hurried along in single-file, Bastila in the lead. There was an outpost, a utility building that linked with the main network. If they could get there, they could escape the potential deathtrap of the tunnels and reach the ship only a few hundred yards away at the port.

A tingle of dread prickled at the nape of her neck when she felt the air start to _move_, drafts of oxygen being sucked back down the way they'd come to feed the fires. This safe haven was about to become their tomb.

Relief flooded her when she sighted the sturdy ladder leading to the surface. Urgently, she pushed the two Younglings ahead of her. One of them reached the hatch above and lifted the door, filling the tunnel with the acrid smoke and fumes of outside.

Bastila coughed as the stench of the gases caused her throat to lock up, and for an instant her attention wavered.

Above her the Younglings gestured encouragingly for the rest of them to come up. Half-blind from the noxious gas carried on the air, Bastila put her feet on the ladder and started climbing.

She never heard the ominous whine until it was too late.

"Don't--"

A deafening roar shook the tunnel, the force of it seeming to grab her by the middle and hurl her backwards as fire, dust, and pieces of what had once been a building exploded _down_. It was as if a massive fist had punched the earth.

Bastila never felt herself hit the ground.

For what felt like just an instant she drifted between bleak unconsciousness and a torpid stupor, all her senses numbed and unresponsive, providing her with only a fraction of the information she needed to perceive what was happening to her. Everything was a blur, a hum, a throbbing sting. The next clear sight she had was of her feet being dragged across a loading ramp. There was another roar accompanied by a bright flash of light and she lost her grasp on lucidity once more.

For a long time she lay in black isolation, aware of only vague, distant constancies, like that she was prone, that there were no loud sounds in her vicinity, and her head hurt more than it ever had. Gradually, she began to again sense other parts of her, and by extension, her surroundings.

It wasn't just her head that hurt; her entire body was throbbing with pain. She groaned - an accomplishment in itself - and worked to open her eyelids. Consciousness was as discomforting as she'd feared it would be.

Bastila found herself lying on a cot in the _Ebon Hawk_'s tiny medical bay, a sheet draped over her body as covering since much of her clothes had been stripped away. A series of needlemarks across her arms and chest told the story that she'd been seriously injured.

Movement ignited hot flares of pain in her ribs and her right arm, where the densest profusion of kolto had been injected. Cracked ribs and a broken arm, possibly more serious internal damage. She hoped they'd used enough kolto, as she felt in no condition to attempt a healing trance on herself.

Laboriously, Bastila maneuvered herself into a sitting position and wrapped the sheet around herself. By the time she was finished she was nearly numb to the insistent cries of her still-wounded body, bearing the pain with stoic resolve.

A word softly spoken told her someone else was in the medbay. Namenlos. His bare back was turned to her, displaying his own set of injection marks where kolto had been applied to what had probably been extensive burn damage. Long dreadlocks trailed down his sinewy frame.

And then she saw it.

A lurid, angry welt of leathery flesh at the small of his back. At first glance, she guessed it to be another burn mark, except it had not healed, had not been treated. The closer she looked at it, the more the fingerlike projections and geometric bifurcations seemed to create a deliberate pattern. The pattern of a brand.

"What happened?" Bastila asked, her voice raspy. "Where is everyone?"

Slowly, Namenlos turned to her, as if becoming aware of her for the first time. "The Mandalorian's with Onasi in the front," he said flatly, "everyone else is in the back somewhere." The way he looked at her made her breath catch in her throat. She remembered the explosion, how everything above her had disappeared in the blast.

"Where are the Younglings?" she asked, fearing the answer.

But he did not answer. He averted his gaze and asked his own question. "What did you Jedi do to me?" There seemed to be more desperation and despair in the question than anger.

"Namenlos, please, where are the Younglings? They are safe, tell me they're safe!" she begged him. Too many Jedi were dead, the Sith had her at every turn. She had to have saved _some_ of them.

"Bastila, someone marked me! Tell me why!" Namenlos cried. Bastila had no answer for him, dreading the reason why he was evading her question.

His haunted eyes filled with tears. "Malak killed them, Bastila. They're dead. He killed them. They were just children, and he killed them." As if he had no strength left to stand, he sank to the floor with his back pressed up against the wall.

"Bastila, I am going to kill Malak."


	18. A Name And A Purpose

_A Name and A Purpose to Every Thing Under the Sun_

There was no cleaner smell than that of smoke, of that, Bandon was sure. It covered the stench of detritus and decay, and was the prelude to the cleansing, comforting flames of the great purifier. Fire represented to him the continuance of all good things, a symbol of the power of virtue and its ability to overcome the stink of greed and self-interest. It also symbolized the necessity of contribution to the cause, the sacrifice of some to serve a greater good to all. As a fire consumed its fuel to bring warmth and comfort, sacrifice for the common good was the only thing that could bring a comparable warmth to the galaxy in the hour of its most dire need.

And contribution _had_ to be universal, none could shirk their responsibility to others. It was Bandon's singular calling to ensure that tribute was paid in full, even by men like the old nomad. His death would serve a good greater than himself, through Bandon.

Contemplatively, he raked fingers through his thick beard and inhaled a full draft of the smoke-filled desert air while with attentive eyes watched every movement of the two acolytes who scurried about scattering ashes - the old man's among them - across the dunes.

The old nomad's small dwelling was now mostly gone, only a smoldering frame remained of what had been a lively, if quaint, home. Filled with trinkets and baubles, queer oddities and the cadaverous keepsakes of his morbid obsessions, it surrendered easily to the heat of the flame. Bandon had seen it all and saved little; Lord Malak was interested in what the nomad might know of the Conduits, but nothing else was to survive.

Bandon burned it all, the bared skulls of slaughtered creatures disgusted him.

As he stood still, the intangible, aromatic, coiling eddies of smoke and dust casting over him, the burning, the crisp odor of fire's eternal companion carried with it a swirl of memories old and not so old.

Barely ten years ago Bandon remembered pining for the smell of smoke more than sleep, food to fill his belly, or a warm body to lie beside if just to keep from freezing in the night. Smoke portended fire, and fire meant fellowship and comfort-what comfort was to be had from other miserable souls like him.

Unskilled, he grew up scorned and spat upon by the people of the world, from a young age denied the simple comforts of basic existence. His earliest memory was of a manufactured existence in an overcrowded orphanage, from which he was expelled before reaching the age of five. There were no warm beds or hot meals or people who cared about him in his bleak childhood. A good day was a day when he could steal food without being caught, sleep without being trodden underfoot or hounded by police, and when the biting cold was kept far enough at bay that he could feel his extremities. Whatever he couldn't beg he had to steal, just to stay alive.

Unlike other planets he had come to know since then, in this city there was no warm-cold cycle; there was cold and colder, all year round. Fire was his only comfort, and often the difference between life and death. When it was so cold that the rags he had to himself were not enough, he had to find fire or die. Sometimes a fortuitous accident would work in his favor; a shop would catch fire, or he would find a heat stack he could sneak close to without being chased off by the municipal police. His only other recourse was sometimes to start a fire of his own, set a building on fire himself.

His favorite times were when the homeless, transients, and no-names like himself gathered around fires of their own beneath bridges, in abandoned buildings, and ghettos where the municipal police rarely patrolled. The city was full of people just like him, turned away from every public service institution and establishment; people who were unwanted, but inextricable parts of society. These communal events meant not only a fire from which he would not be chased so long as the police never showed, but usually food and the opportunity for sleep as well. And long after the fires died, he could often count on several warm bodies with which to share heat. Any small bit of comfort from the cold, neglect, and scarcity of sustenance was welcome to anyone forced to live on the streets of that nightmare city whose name he had never learned.

Such times of relative plenty did not last long, however, and could be few and far in between, with long stretches of loneliness, dearth, and discomfort before the next. There was so little food for the destitute that such a pooling of resources placed a tremendous strain on individual needs for survival, and everyone had to look after their own troubles before the community's. It was just a fact of life.

As Bandon found himself getting older, taking care of and sustaining himself became both harder and easier. Harder because he needed more and more food to keep from starvation, easier because he became better at stealing and being able to handle himself if ever he got caught.

He remembered one time facing down a shop owner who caught him making off with bread and cheese. As the pudgy man swore and hurled vile epithets at him, he stood his ground and smashed his fist into the man's throat. Leaving the shop owner choking and wheezing on the floor, he ran out the back with his food, exhilarated to have a meal but sickened to his very stomach at what he'd done to get it.

But it got easier as he got older, he learned to tune out most of his revulsion at the extremes to which he resorted in order to continue surviving. Eventually he started to get less hungry, his muscles grew, and soon the intimidation of just his physical size was often enough to make the difference in a confrontation. He rarely had to harm another for food again.

But still the cold gnawed at him, every day testing him, always the most bitter misery man could endure. Nothing could keep it away forever, so those nights crowded around a fire, sharing food, stories, and sometimes the comfort and pleasure of another's body, remained special times for him. He might even have been happy for a time.

And one night it was all taken away.

The municipal police had broken up gatherings before, whenever they could find them, so the locations were kept secret as a code of honor between beggars. Gatherings served the good of the community, so it was the duty of each individual to respect the right of the community to assemble free of oppression. To break this code was an act of treason.

One night, close to freezing from the brutal cold, Bandon slept with a girl whose brother was so inflamed by Bandon's desire for relief from the cold that he gave away the location of the gathering place to the police, who promptly raided the ghetto and scattered the gathering. Afterwards, he spread false word that it was Bandon who betrayed the location in exchange for favors, and Bandon was never welcome at another's fire again.

Two more bitter, cruel years passed, in which he found himself reduced to bold-faced robbery of passersby so he could bribe food and clothing from others. The shop owner was not the last man he ever struck, merely the prelude to the violence that soon became his life. For a long time he used his size and strength to get what he needed because he could get it no other way.

It was hard to grasp the fact that it only took a chance encounter with a remarkable Jedi for his life to so utterly change. He was given a chance to rise above what fate and the insensitivity of others had made him by the Jedi who called himself Malak.

"A name and a figure, to do what must be done," Bandon whispered, repeating the words Malak used to explain why he could no longer be called by his old name. It was a part of his old life, to which he was no longer bound. Malak understood how men like him were called to do great things, and once they found their true calling, everything about their life from that point on should be dedicated to that purpose.

Malak was devoted to freeing those like him who had lived their whole lives in misery and oppression. Just listening to Malak filled him with hope that things could and would be changed for the better, such was the confidence he inspired. He awoke him to abilities he never even knew he possessed; abilities which, if he so chose, could be used in the service of this great Crusade to free the galaxy from its own avarice and tyranny. This was his calling.

And thus was he named Bandon.

* * *

Bandon climbed into the cockpit of his vessel, a dart-like craft engineered specifically for his long-range missions such as this. He was eager to rejoin the fleet and see all his friends again, or at least those not on assignments of their own. Over the years, he had not only bonded tightly with Malak, the leader of the great Crusade, but forged true friendships with many other dedicated souls like himself who wished for a galaxy free of the oppressive bureaucracy, segregation, and discrimination that ran rampant through every pore of the current system. The successful war against the Mandalorians had removed the external threat that continued to hold the ragged and rotten corporation of tyranny together, and now they were on the verge of the ultimate victory and that final resounding proclamation of peace, peace and freedom at last.

Bandon wanted to be among friends when that day came. As grateful as he was to do the work of the Crusade in that way only he could, it still meant long weeks away from the people who had become his new family, as the vagrants and no-names of that long-ago frozen city had once been. Malak, especially, was something of a father figure to him, even though they were of comparable ages and Malak was only slightly larger. He represented everything Bandon hoped one day to be; noble, self-sacrificing, and completely dedicated to the cause of righteousness.

The communications panel chirped as Bandon sat down to the ship's control console, indicating an incoming message. He switched on the holofeed and Malak's image filled the three polarized screens that spanned the forward center of the compartment.

"_Greetings from the fleet._"

Bandon bowed his head slightly, in awe and reverence for the great man. "Greetings from Tatooine, Master."

"_It's quite warm there._"

"It is indeed, Master," Bandon replied, wiping collected sweat from his brow. He remembered when the presence of sweat could spell death-here its absence was dangerous. "I think it's something I am still getting used to."

"_There are places in the galaxy hotter still, Bandon,_" Malak remarked. His flat tone almost carried a note of concern, else Bandon had imagined it.

Ever since the attempt on his life, Malak had been incapable of speech without the aid of a device attached to his throat and wired into his brain. It was during a strategic conference between Malak and his top commanders that a briefcase bomb beneath a table exploded, killing three and wounding many others, including Malak, who was ravaged in the most inhuman way that seemed possible. His jaw was shattered, much of his face lacerated by flying shrapnel, and the surgeons were forced to cut away the affected areas to prevent the spread of infection.

His compromised air passages were covered by the speech synthesizer, but Malak refused to mask his face, preferring to wear a constant reminder of the iniquity he fought. His voice would never carry the same cadence and emotion as it once had, his face would forever be a horrific monument of loss, but Malak's resolve was stronger than ever before. Bandon admired him all the more for it.

"I think I will survive, Malak."

"_Yes, I think you will. What is the status of your mission?_"

"The old man has made his sacrifice," Bandon answered, still feeling the trill of vitality in his body which came from the use of his unique talent. "He led me to another Conduit, but unfortunately no closer to Bindo."

"_Bindo is of no concern. If he were to get involved, he would have long ago. It would be a boon if he could be found, but he has been gone too long. What is important now is that the Conduits not be left for the Jedi to find. The one on Dantooine has served its purpose, now we must leave nothing to chance. In fact, Dantooine itself has served its purpose._"

"You will finally destroy the Jedi encampment there?" This was good news indeed.

Malak's eyes glimmered with exultation. "_It is already done. But Bandon, be warned, Revan has resurfaced; he was there._"

"Revan, the heretic?"

"_Yes. I have no doubt he escaped the conflagration and is even now plotting further sabotage of the Crusade._"

"Even for a Cathar, he is unusually destructive," Bandon remarked, his mouth twisting with displeasure at the thought of the eccentric former Sith. He had never been tied to the plot to assassinate Malak, but Bandon suspected him regardless. "What would you have me do, Master?"

"_Trust in the Force, Bandon. You will find Revan._"

* * *

Angry, argumentative voices piercing the confines of the small compartment where she sat in repose were the first things Juhani heard from the infirmary. Him, she could understand, but to hear Bastila with such a tone of contention was so unexpected that for a moment she wondered if perhaps it might be someone entirely different exchanging heated words with the man whose name was no name. She could understand none of the words through the thick walls, but her ears caught nuances in tone which, even divorced from the words spoken, still told her much.

Anger was the last thing Juhani expected from Bastila. Even upon waking to learn that the Jedi Enclave was destroyed, everything for which she had worked her entire life was gone, and even those few she tried to save were killed before they could make it to safety; even such dire news did not seem like it should be able to wring such an uncharacteristic emotion. Anger from Bastila was so un-Jedi-like that it concerned Juhani, yet at the same time was almost a refreshing change from the somberness that had settled over the mismatched group of survivors aboard the small cargo ship when they saw the extent of the ruin and carnage at the site of what had once been a thriving settlement.

Hardly a building left standing, blackened craters covered the land for miles around when the bombardment finally stopped and Sith infantry moved in to occupy the devastated colony. From what the Republic man, Carth Onasi, could tell, only a handful of ships besides theirs had escaped the razing of the Enclave. Perhaps a dozen Jedi out of hundreds survived. Civilian casualties were equally staggering.

For Juhani, it was the second home she'd lost to the Sith within only a few days, and in quelling the anger that threatened to fester inside her, she had descended into a despondent mood. Now that gloominess was broken.

Namenlos and Bastila's voices became louder; they were coming out into the main hold.

"-and our responsibility to return to the Republic fleet and regroup with the other Jedi!"

Juhani heard an object thrown to the floor in response to Bastila's protestation. "I am not a Jedi, and I never, ever will be, Bastila! Get that through your head!"

The confrontation drew her in. Juhani cautiously opened the closet-sized door and looked out into the main hold. Bastila was dressed in a medical gown, crossly folding her arms over her chest at Namenlos, who was shirtless and leaning heavily on the circular counter in the center of the room with one arm, while his other hand was clenched in a fist around the hilt of a sheathed knife. Every muscle on his wiry frame was rigid with tension, each needle mark a sharply contrasted point of discoloration on his pale skin.

After her shouts, Bastila seemed to sense her own indiscretion, and when she spoke next it was in an evener voice. "As long as I am here and in charge, there will be no such rash and arrogant decisions being made," she said solemnly with a heavy note of reproof. "As a representative of the Jedi Order it is my responsibility to see the doctrines of the Jedi upheld, especially where unjustified use of the Force is concerned. I simply cannot allow you to-"

"I am going to kill Malak, Bastila."

Juhani's mind flashed back to the hours after the attack ended, when he had spoken those words for the first time. They were the words that threatened a swell of anger of her own, fury at what the Sith had done, first to Taris, the only home she'd known, and now Dantooine, her last sanctuary. But no longer could she allow such feelings to betray her; that was the path to the Dark Side. But surely nothing could have felt more deserved, more justified, than to wish punishment on the one who had called for such slaughter. Surely no one deserved speedy death more than Malak, but she could not wish him him dead, not if she was to stay true to the Jedi teachings.

Memory of her mother's tormentors rose anew in her mind.

"Bringing Malak to answer for his crimes is not your right, Namenlos," Bastila sternly lectured. "Striking him down in anger will only perpetuate the cycle of evil, solving nothing. You will have become what you despise."

Namenlos gave Bastila a cold look, so cold that Juhani shuddered to think what dire thoughts must be behind his deep red eyes. "Whose right is it, then, Bastila? No one's-everyone's! If a hound is loose in your flock, you kill the hound; when a knife is held to your throat you don't wait and hope for a court to pass judgment on your assailant, you defend your life. Malak is killing indiscriminately, thoughtlessly, and he has promised to make my life a living nightmare of torture and pain and punishment for a crime I can't remember. So then, Bastila, the hound _is_ loose in the flock, the knife is at my throat. What should I do?"

Bastila was silent, she opened her mouth to speak but not a word came out. Juhani was transfixed by the Jedi's speechlessness.

"What should I do!" Namenlos was clenching his knife was tenaciously that his knuckles were bone white against the dark scuffed leather grip. Beads of sweat formed a rivulet that ran down the scar in his face, yet his glare was hot enough to evaporate the moisture from his skin.

"You must kill him."

Juhani only realized it was she who had spoken when both Namenlos and Bastila turned to look at her, surprised. The words had flowed from her lips almost of their own accord, yet Juhani had meant them.

"You _must_ kill him," she said again, more forcefully this time. Her sudden, solid conviction was unsettling, but she could not doubt its veracity.

Bastila was shocked. "Juhani, you can't... the Dark Side..."

"Bastila," Juhani said softly, "we Cathar mark a difference between revenge and retribution. This is what I understand. The former is done out of spite, the latter from a desire for justice. Perhaps as Jedi we should learn this same distinction."

Bastila sat down, defeated.

Namenlos gazed at Juhani with what seemed newfound respect. She blushed at his scrutiny and turned away. "I'm going to go tell Onasi," he said. "We're not headed for Telos and the Republic Army. We're going after Malak."

* * *

Bastila watched Namenlos and Juhani head for the cockpit with a sense of foreboding hanging like a pall over her. Everything was coming apart, there was no longer any getting around the fact that she'd failed. Fate and the Force were conspiring against her; the war was lost or would be soon, the Council's plan to use Revan against the Sith had fallen through in almost every way possible, and he was now, for all intents and purposes, free to roam and rage at the galaxy. And she had only herself to blame that she would surely go down as the most unfaithful Jedi in the history of the Order.

Dantooine and Jedi Enclave were gone, her Masters dead or cut off from her, Bastila was alone with a duty she could no longer control. Revan was right back where he'd started, under the influence of the Dark Side, and it was thanks to her and her mistakes. His promise to kill Malak was tantamount to an oath of allegiance to the Sith.

As these bleak thoughts continued to occupy her, Bastila felt the faint twitching of possibilities rising at the back of her mind. Perhaps it was not yet impossible that she could steer him back towards the Light, or at least accomplish what needed to be done to stop the Sith. His lust for revenge on Malak might be used to induce him into leading them to the Star Forge without realizing it. She would only have to apply the proper pressure where it would best be suited.

Bastila took a few deep breaths and calmed herself, willing her inner serenity to shear away the tangled profusion of volatile emotions and dangerous ideas she was slowly absorbing from Revan. As she cleared her mind, Bastila felt her spirits lift, and suddenly the task before her did not seem as daunting as it had before.

Now, if only the rest would be so easy.

Bastila decided first to get dressed. Arguing with a shirtless, amnesiac Sith Lord whilst wearing only a papery medical gown-she felt foolish to have thought he would listen to her. If she was to have any chance to sway him, she needed to present herself correctly, and that required more adequate clothing than she currently possessed.

Entering the infirmary, she found her initial assessment correct: her Jedi's robes had been shredded beyond repair by the near-crippling blast in which she'd been caught, the blast she should have anticipated-the blast that killed two other Jedi. What remained of her clothes had been thrown into a waste bin next to a pile of the rest of her things.

Thankfully, she was saved the embarrassment of having to find herself clothes by the providential appearance of the Twi'lek girl, Mission, who poked her head into the tiny medical compartment, several articles of clothing under her arm.

"Hey."

"What do you want, Mission?" Bastila asked, fingering her lightsabre.

"I'm just glad to see you're up. You took a pretty nasty bunch of injuries. Big Z and I used up almost the whole cabinet's worth of kolto getting you patched up."

"You have my thanks for that," Bastila replied, her eyes fixed on the things Mission was carrying.

The Twi'lek started, as if remembering her reason for coming by. She waved a dark blue tunic for Bastila to see. "They don't fit me, and you look like you could use them, at least until we can find an emporium somewhere. Davik didn't exactly keep a wardrobe for ladies stocked on board, but he was a smuggler." Mission tossed her the tunic and leggings. "I did find a few other interesting things in the cargo hold." She tossed her a fibrous black vest. "That's a real piece of work, right there. Probably Jal-Shey, or Echani, or something. I know the type; it'll stop a blade easy as it turns heads. I know some of the dancers back on Taris-"

"Mission!" Bastila interrupted her.

"Huh?"

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"Mission, you want Darth Malak dead for what he did to Taris, don't you?" Bastila asked in a soft voice.

At her question, Mission became visibly uncomfortable, fidgeting and scuffing the floor with her feet. "Yes," she answered after a moment of expectant silence.

"And does that make you want to become an assassin, just so you can kill him?"

Mission's eyes suddenly snapped up in anger. "No! I mean, I think he should pay for what he did, but there are other ways I can help bring him down besides putting a blaster to his head. I'd never make it that far anyway."

But Revan believes he can, Bastila thought, her looming sense of foreboding returning.

"Thank you, Mission," she said again, and the girl rushed off.

Bastila shut and locked the infirmary door, stripped off the medical gown and quickly dressed in the garments Mission had provided her. They were not perfect, but the fit was reasonable. She favored the vest; as Mission remarked, it was indeed of a fine Echani weave, elegant yet capable of stopping the sharpest knife.

When she finished, she wrapped her belt around her waist. It and the few items she carried on it - her lightsabre, a comlink, a small purse of credit chips, a personal log - were the only pieces of home she had left.

All the while Bastila mused. Perhaps she could convince Revan not to attempt a strike at the heart of the Sith, not attack Malak directly, but, as Mission had said, find another way to ensure his destruction. She couldn't even contemplate how many Jedi statutes such a plan would violate, but she saw no other recourse except to let him march on, kill Malak, retake his place at the head of the Sith, and start the cycle of violence all over again.

Bastila opened the infirmary door and stepped out into the hall, heading for the garage. She needed space and quiet, for she could not predict the effects of what she was about to attempt.

In the garage she found the Mandalorian, Canderous Ordo. He cracked a dry grin at her. "Rise and shine, buttercup."

"Don't test me, Mandalorian. I'm in no mood for your games," Bastila snapped.

Canderous chuckled and shook his head. "You took a good bump on the head. I was just giving you a friendly welcome back to the world of the living."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Now, I will require use of this space. You are to remove yourself from the room until I am finished."

The Mandalorian stared at her, then slowly and deliberately gathered up his things. "Don't forget your lightsabre on the way out," he said with a smirk as he left. The message was clear: he knew she no longer had any real authority, and was merely humoring her for his own amusement.

As things currently stood, Revan had usurped her. She had to regain a measure of control, had to somehow channel his destructive tendencies to serve a greater end, for she could not allow him to fight for his own sake. She needed answers to her questions and knew where to find some of them: among the pieces of Revan's memory that were trapped in her own mind.


	19. Crossroads

_Crossroads_

Dry and oily like the smoke from the candles, restlessness held her in its implacable grip. Her eyes would not rest, they flitted this way and that, taking in the sight of the dimmed room around her, as if to draw strength from the gaily colored flags that hung illuminated by only the candle-flame. A pen was clutched in fingers rigid with an undefined tension, and below it were the partially inked letters and unfinished sentences of a treatise abandoned.

Each page of half-completed thoughts was a frustration to her, a thwarting of her efforts to rationalize to herself exactly what had made her come to make the choices she did. Sleep had evaded her for days, and she suspected none would be forthcoming this night.

As she scanned her failures, unsatisfied with their attempts to express her innermost thoughts, she came to the discomforting realization that she couldn't understand a single word of what she had spent hours compiling. One by one, she fed the pages to her candles, watched tongues of flame devour her vacuous words.

With a new sheet of bleached paper, she started again, penning her name with alien letters. A sudden rap on the door broke her reverie. "Who is it?" she called, surprised by the sharp tabor of her voice.

"Malak," came the muffled reply.

"Come in."

Ducking around a pale beige flag, the towering Jedi entered. He was so tall the top of his head nearly reached the ceiling, enough so that the intricately portrayed glyph on the flag was broken by his massive frame.

"I've spoken to most of the others," he said. When she didn't reply, he continued, pacing the length the small room over and over. "They believe what I'm telling them, thank the Force, but I need some assurances from you. Frack, I need explanations! I can't preach to them about what we should do when I don't know half of it myself, Arravin!"

Her ears twitched. "Revan."

Malak hastily apologized. "Of course, Revan. I'm sorry. They listen to me, but it is no secret that most of what I tell them comes from you. Perhaps if you could-"

Abruptly, she turned away from her desk and faced him squarely. "Malak, I will only scare them. It's better they hear what they must from you; you are someone to whom they can relate. They hardly even know who I am, except that I'm Jedi. I know it doesn't seem this way to you, but my Cathar blood is a wall between me and other people, others who are not Cathar, and especially Jedi. Even between you and me, though you know me better than most." She turned away. "No, Malak, you need to lead them while I stay in the shadows."

Malak said nothing for a long while until he finally ceded. "Okay, Revan, you're right. I won't ask you to become a motivational speaker. You probably would just scare them. But you understand more of Bindo's writings than I do. You were the one who found them, after all. I can't feign to know what I'm talking about when we confront the others about the Star Forge, and you know we have to eventually.

"No, they won't have to know, Malak. Not yet," she answered him. "The Mandalorian threat comes first, then we worry about the bigger issues. And don't shortsell yourself, even if Bindo is the only one to decipher the Star Forge's location, we still may not need him. There is an old Jedi living on Tatooine who had contact with Bindo when he and his controversial theories, incomprehensible treatises, and obscure research left the Order a half century ago. And I have good reason to believe they are still in touch."

Malak was stunned. "How did you discover this?"

For once, she smiled. "You'd be amazed how many doors in the Archives can be unlocked by a few firebud roses."

Malak chuckled at her rare joke.

"His name is Komad, and he's been a hermit in the Dune Sea for forty years," she explained, again serious. "I don't think we need worry that he is going anywhere. Now please, I need a few hours, then I will be ready."

"Of course, I'll leave you to your work."

As Malak left, she turned back to the paper on which she'd written only the two words. Now she knew what she had to say. The words were crystal clear in her mind if not in ink:

_Arravin Korsk is dead. The evils gone unpunished against my own and other free peoples have killed him. Revan lives in his place now. Revan: the name which is to stand for this crusade of just retribution. Arravin will not live and neither will Revan rest until the persecutors of his people have met their end and freedom exists once more._

_ I will fight to protect that which matters most to me. I disavow the Jedi Order's claim to me and what is mine; I am my own._

As she wrote, the tip of her pen tracing character upon character that she could not read, it felt to her as if she were contained in her own private bubble of time outside which time itself had ceased to flow. Nothing but her and the page seemed to exist anymore.

This eerie tranquility was broken when the light from her candles was suddenly extinguished. The fine hairs at the back of her neck prickled and she jerked her head up at the sound of the door opening unbidden.

She could sense them, three Jedi standing outside...

* * *

Reality cracked, tearing her away from the ruthless intensity of the vision. Bastila's heart thumped frenetically, she gulped air, and for the first few moments she could not remember where she was. She'd been so absorbed, so entrenched in Revan's psyche that every detail of the experience was still raw and impinging on each thought. A few seconds passed before she was able to fully differentiate what had been the dream and what was real.

Such an endeavor would have been best attempted in conjunction with the one whose mind she intended to invade, or at least in his presence. But since much of what she sought seemed to exist only in her mind, and since Namenlos would never have allowed her to do so if he'd known, Bastila had gone far beyond the borders of what was considered safe. The effort needed to sustain such total concentration was substantial, and unmistakably finite. Thus, she had been pulled out of the dreamlike vision at a critical moment that she knew would define Revan's life from that point forward.

An ugly cloud of foreboding hung over the vision, coloring her mood.

Arravin Korsk, his old name, had been abandoned in favor of the moniker Revan. Bastila did not know what to think of this. She had always assumed he had taken that name as part of his turning to the Sith, but now she doubted that had anything to do with his reasons. She disliked this uncertainty, especially when his stated cause had more of a ring of nobility to it than all her feeble arguments that he should not fight Malak. It was a nobility that disguised its ultimate selfishness.

It was clear to her that Revan and Malak had, in fact, started their war for just the reasons they cited: they both believed it was the right thing to do. Yet, again the role of the Star Forge was blurred and frustratingly unclear, yet bafflingly at the center of everything. She had never heard the name Bindo, but she was vaguely aware of a Jedi who had long ago left the Order in quite the pompous, loud-mouthed manner, citing the many imaginary reasons why he had not been listened to. She presumed this must have been the enigmatic Bindo, for he was never heard from again, nor was it known where he had gone.

Her course was set then. She would go to Tatooine and seek out this Jedi recluse who was the last to have contact with Bindo. If he could not help her find the Star Forge, he could point her to the one who could.

Canderous was waiting outside the garage, arms folded, a reticent expression on his face. "Done stretching?"

Bastila was concerned with everything except him at the moment. She answered with a curt, "Indeed."

The Mandalorian flashed her a wolfish grin and made a point of brushing her with his massive shoulder even though he could easily have passed well wide of her. Bastila ignored his goading. As she was about to make for the cockpit in search of Namenlos, an odd sound arrested her attention. It was the clashing of lightsabres.

* * *

It seemed ridiculous to be putting on the robes of a Jedi, but even if he had grown to hate what the Jedi ultimately symbolized, Namenlos grudgingly acknowledged the necessity of wearing their clothes. Their altruistic dogmas could not poison him via robes, he had little fear of that. Nevertheless, in a gesture of unadulterated self-expression, he cut away the sleeves and left his arms bared.

Only two days had passed since the destruction of the settlement on Dantooine, but it felt like weeks to him. Weighing heavily on his mind were the things he'd learned in the temple, having stewed for long hours during the solitary confinement that was cut short. His connection to Malak, his true name, and the enigmas of both this crusade and what Malak called "conduits", which he promised would allow his Sith to hunt him wherever he was in the galaxy.

Having reached the decision that one way or another he would kill Malak, Namenlos felt one pressure lifted and another laid upon him, this newest one of practicality rather than abstraction; he was vastly ill-equipped and ill-prepared to make such an attempt. Still facing him were the most mundane of hurdles, not the least of which was acquiring adequate provisions for a sustained voyage.

Choosing a destination was another quandary. When he'd gone to inform Carth Onasi to divert away from Telos, thus avoiding a rendezvous with the Republic fleet, he realized he had no idea where to find Malak. Though he voiced his continued distrust, the Republic man was on board with his plan at least as far as killing Malak was concerned, but he fairly pointed out that until they had at least some idea how to accomplish such a suicidal task, the refuge provided by the Republic fleet at Telos was as good a place as any.

But even the matter of finding Malak amidst a galaxy crawling with Sith did not concern Namenlos as much as others. After finishing with Onasi, he wandered back to the main hold and proceeded to toy with the leather-bound handle of the homely knife that was his only keepsake of Taris and his old life, mulling his possible options.

For help with the problems concerning his mind at the moment, Bastila couldn't be trusted. That left only one option.

Jamming his knife back into its meager sheath, he resolutely marched up to the small side compartment and rapped on the door. Juhani answered almost instantly, her eyes betraying a second of evanescent perturbation.

"How may I be of assistance?"

Namenlos opened his mouth to speak, only to find the question flown from his head. "I-" he stammered, fumbling for words, cursing his sudden clumsiness. "Are you okay?" he asked instead.

Juhani frowned. "I am fine. Why do you ask?"

"You don't look well," Namenlos answered truthfully.

She waved away his concerns. "I was just remembering, that is all. What is it you wish to speak to me about?"

"To be quite honest, I need your help, Juhani." Her ears perked. Namenlos unconsciously fidgeted with the handle of his knife as he explained. "I knew I was going to have to kill Malak when I saw him in the temple, and I haven't had second thoughts about it. But I did realize..." He stared morosely at the pitiful knife in his hand. "At the moment, I'm not really much of a match for any Sith. I fought one on Taris and he-well, he nearly killed me. On Dantooine the Jedi weren't too interested in teaching me anything except how to do nothing, but now I think I need to learn how to use a lightsabre."

Juhani frowned. "You would ask me to teach you this? Would it not be more appropriate for Bastila to instruct you?"

He leaned close to her and spoke in a low voice. "Juhani, I can't trust Bastila. She's Jedi and will look to the betterment of their codes first. I want to trust you." These last five words were spoken with an underlying desperation that bordered on the trite, but he was fishing with his last hook and didn't know how else to say it.

"I am no instructor," Juhani said, her expression neutral, "but I can at least teach you how not to harm yourself."

Namenlos almost sighed explosively. "Thank you," he replied, feeling dumb that that was the best he could muster.

"Why do you not trust Bastila?" Juhani asked suddenly.

"I told you; she's Jedi."

Juhani narrowed her eyes. "I am Jedi."

He winced, regretting his choice of words. "She lies for the Jedi Council, and you speak for yourself."

"I see."

There was an awkward silence and Namenlos turned away, afraid he'd ruined his chance with too much vehemence. He intended to protect Juhani if he could; this was no way for him to start.

Abruptly, Juhani turned and tossed him something. "This is the lightsabre I used during my training. It lacks the power crystals needed to make it an effective weapon, so you cannot injure yourself too badly with it while we practice."

Namenlos turned the unadorned metal cylinder over in his hands, reflexively tensing and relaxing his grip to get a feel for the weapon. It felt much different than his knife, but then he'd expected that. What he'd not expected was the unusual way in which it was balanced. It sat oddly in his hand, as if it were missing much of its mass.

With one of his thumbs he flicked the single guarded switch, freeing a weak blue beam that released an ardent hum into the air as he moved it about. As if by magic, the balance of the weapon shifted, and it now felt like any other properly balanced sword, no longer the slightest bit odd in his grip. He gaped in wonder.

Juhani shooed him down the hall and they took up residence in the mostly empty cargo hold for the impromptu lesson. She made him turn off the training lightsabre and focused first on teaching him to stand properly. "Bring your foot forward," she would say, "Square your shoulders," "Hold your weapon upright and clear of your face so it does not blind you," and a dozen other little things until she had him holding his body just so. Then she had him take a few paces and resume the same stance, which, to his surprise, he found not very difficult. His body just seemed to... fall into the correct stance. It was certainly not perfect, but close each time she had him repeat the exercise.

"Bastila said I was a Jedi once," he offered as an explanation.

She shrugged. "Perhaps. The body remembers things the mind cannot. You still walk, you still speak, but remember nothing. I suppose it is possible."

When she had him standing properly, Namenlos turned on his blue training blade and Juhani activated her familiar red sabre, a fancier weapon that included a dial allowing her to tune its intensity down to a safe level.

She assumed a stance she called the high guard and instructed him in the proper way to parry an attack made from this position, using slow, labored movements so he could not misunderstand.

When she made the strike, Namenlos found himself bringing the blue blade up in a rush, snapping off the attack quickly and impulsively rather than using the same deliberate movements Juhani had.

Sheepishly, he went back to the defensive stance she'd taught him.

The next two hours found him taking to her instruction with relative ease. Once she had taught him the basic motions they were able to spar with each other, she using first only the same elementary moves as he. Most of what she was teaching him seemed perfectly natural, almost like a common sense guide to combat, and while he was not always able to duplicate her instructions exactly or even well, he understood the concepts behind what she was trying to teach.

He was learning, but Juhani was clearly the better, that much was painfully obvious each time she disarmed him with a clever strategy just slightly more advanced than what she had shown him. She was trying to build on what he knew, demonstrating techniques based on the ones he could do, but she was always four or fives moves ahead of him and he knew it. She was humoring him for the sake of instruction.

And it was for that reason that he never once complained about the pain when she maneuvered him flat onto his back with a single feint. But still, each time their mock battles came to their inevitable conclusion, he vowed to himself that he would find a way to surprise her, just once. It was ludicrous to be thinking of besting his instructor on the first day of his instruction, but the longer he was with her, the more possible the improbable seemed to become.

Picking up his lightsabre after losing yet again, Namenlos did not go back into his defensive stance, instead he planted one foot forward and pulled his hands up high to head level, pointing his blade outward with his body coiled behind it. This wasn't something she'd taught him, but it was how he would attack if it were up to him-it just felt right.

Juhani didn't react to his innovation the way he thought she would. She turned white with dread.

Alarmed, Namenlos immediately relaxed his posture and switched off his blade. "Did I do something wrong?"

Though she masked it well in her voice, Juhani was clearly shaken. "I have not told you what happened to me when we were inside the temple."

"No," Namenlos admitted. "And you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want-"

Juhani shook her head vigorously. "No, this you must hear!"

"Alright," he acquiesced. "Tell me, then."

Deactivating her lightsabre, Juhani paced back and forth a number of times before speaking. "You remember when we ran we became separated, yet the more we ran, the more fully lost we both became, we somehow found each other?"

He nodded.

"Well, before... before you found me, I had come to a place deep in the temple where only the barest hint of light penetrated. It was then that I finally thought to stop running, if just to get my bearings so I would not crash into a wall. And I swear that the moment I stopped and began looking about this vast, dark room, my skin began to crawl. It was like the whole room was moving, but also staying in the same place. And when I turned to run the way I had come, there was no longer a doorway, the wall was smooth and unbroken. So I waited.

"It must have been several minutes before the light came. It was the strangest light, erupting from the center of that dark room. It somehow managed to burn bright in my eyes without illuminating anything of the room I was in. And then the man appeared."

Namenlos remembered his vision of Malak.

"He was there and he was not. I know of no way to adequate describe the feeling that came to me when I looked at him. He said nothing, but I knew he would destroy me. At first I thought he had no face, then I realized he wore a mask. Suddenly, a lightsabre was in my hand, and he was raising his just as you did." Namenlos felt his arms prickle with gooseflesh as she went on., her voice eerily toneless. "Our blades clashed several times, and then he just... died. I cut off his head."

Juhani was silent for so long that Namenlos thought she had finished. But the look on her face said she wanted him to ask the question. "What happened then?"

Her eyes seemed to cut into his soul. "Then the mask exploded from off his face. And it was yours. It was your face."

A chill ran down his spine.

"You two should not have been there, the temple is corrupted by the Dark Side." Namenlos and Juhani both whirled to see Bastila standing just outside the doorway, arms crossed. She eyed the training sabre in Namenlos' hand. "It is good you are taking this mission of yours seriously; it is no small undertaking you have committed yourself to."

Angry at the interruption, Namenlos scowled at her. "If you've just come to criticize..." he growled.

"I've come to do no such thing," Bastila replied coolly. "In fact, I would like to aid you in your fight against Malak, since that is, after all, my sworn duty as a Jedi. Or at least what it should be." She raised an eyebrow. "And I would hazard to guess that you will need all the help you can get if you plan to take on the whole Sith alliance, which is what you will have to do in order to ever get close to Malak. His followers are innumerable, fanatically dedicated, and any one of them more than able to tear you to pieces in your current state. I've come to offer you an alternative to such a suicidal course."

Namenlos could hardly believe it. The dogmatic Bastila, the rigidly strict, Code-following, machine-like Bastila, was almost completely gone. She spoke in a casual, off-hand manner completely different from what he was accustomed to.

"I'm listening."

"Aside from our direct engagements with Malak's forces, much of the Jedi war effort has been directed towards the enigma of the Star Forge, which we believe is somehow central to the entire Sith war strategy. We do not know how, but it is the key to Malak's power. If we could destroy it, then Malak's ability to wage war would be significantly diminished, if not vanish altogether. Certainly it will leave him vulnerable."

"So you propose we search for this Star Forge, then?"

Bastila nodded. "I do. If you think about it rationally, you should see that you have no chance against Malak now, at the peak of his power, if you come at him directly. He will kill you and that will be the end of it. The Republic has been trying to do this for years with trillion-credit funded war machines and consistently failed. Malak is simply too powerful unless you attack him at the source; something we have been unable to do until now."

"So we find this Star Forge, destroy it, and then what? We hope the Republic can finish the job?"

Bastila leveled an even stare at him. "Then you kill Malak."


	20. Wounds

_Wounds_

The dawn was diffused by an overcast of choking black smoke. Where light penetrated the artificial dusk it reflected off the shiny silver armor of the Sith soldiers who picked through the still-burning rubble, the remains of the Jedi Enclave.

Much of the wreckage was reduced to little more than ash, but the enormous steel framing of the buildings still piled in tilted heaps like giant, blackened matchsticks. Still others sections were relatively untouched by the fires, but shattered by the crippling kinetic impact of the bomb blasts.

A small number of survivors had been pulled from the debris, but the dead far outnumbered the living.

Yuthura Ban was not here to search for survivors, however. Surrounded by an entourage of acolytes—Sith hopefuls assigned to a senior officer in order to learn by observation and instruction—she was here to take in the sights, the sounds, the smells—the indescribable horror of it all.

The air stank, reeking of noxious fumes, chemical smoke, burnt flesh and spilled viscera. The putrid smell summoned feelings of nausea so powerful that Yuthura had to force herself not to take the breath mask implicitly suggested to her by one of the acolytes. Everywhere she looked there lay devastation of the sort that a person cannot prepare for. A tortured piece of sundered steel was often hard to tell apart from the shriveled cadaver of a once-living person.

Yuthura had been away from the front lines for too long, had lost some of her immunity to the acrid horrors of the Crusade. She should never have choked on the smell, nor felt her heart stop for a brief second while one of her acolytes pulled away a sheet of debris revealing the small, shattered body of a child.

War was a terrible thing.

Malak taught that there would be moments in her life such as these; moments when she would doubt the utter necessity of fighting the good fight, times when the path of virtue might seem indistinguishable from the evil they resisted. These were the times when her faith must remain absolute, a stalwart defense and stronghold against the foolishness of thought without belief.

Times such as these required her to focus her feelings on her ultimate service to the greater good. The Jedi here had brought this destruction upon themselves. Malak had resorted to this violence because they had left him no other choice, refusing a vision born of their own teachings, casting out all the true Jedi as traitors, and poisoning the rest of the galaxy against the cause of righteousness.

Responsibility for the bloodshed committed here was rightfully laid at the feet of the Jedi.

Despite this knowledge, as she stared at the dead body of a child, Yuthura couldn't help the thought that Malak's prophesied Golden Age had never seemed further away. They were supposed to be winning over the young and the ignorant, those still waiting for Fate to decide a destiny for them. Now many of those lost souls would never be claimed.

War was a terrible thing. Terribly necessary.

Perhaps it was the news of Revan's reappearance that brought out her old, antiquated ways of thinking in one brief moment of weakness. Revan the Heretic, the ultimate tragedy, was still a powerful symbol of losing the way. Revan started the movement Malak perfected, but it was his insatiable avarice and ultimate selfishness that led to the eventual sabotage of everything he and Malak had worked for.

With Revan's downfall came the more shocking revelation when the Sith literally split in two. Most remained faithful to the cause, but many felt compelled to make their own separate betrayals, showing themselves just as disillusioned with the path to glory as Revan. Yuthura had nearly been one of them, and she still remembered the temptation to join those dissenters, wherever they had gone to leave their hopeless war behind.

But she doubted no more. She would see selfishness and cruelty banished from the galaxy in a cleansing flame of righteousness. And her part in that renewed campaign started here, on Dantooine.

Yuthura let these feelings wash over her, letting them numb the mind-aching pain and horror, until she could breath the air without feeling the urge to vomit, could take in the sights of horrific carnage without batting an eye.

Due punishment had been dealt. Now began the slow but ultimately rewarding process of reform. The people here would come to see the nobility of the Sith cause, and in the end, she would win them over.

For it was only through the hearts and minds of the common people that victory could be won. So taught Lord Malak.

* * *

The people were a ragtag lot. Most from the surrounding area were farm-workers or refugees from the attack on the Enclave, covered in soot and grime. Others had been pulled from greedy stores of wealth by the thorough Sith search teams who rooted out the cowardly and avaricious from remote caves as well as lavish estates. The result was an odd juxtaposition of slovenly peasants and manicured

Dantooites of wealthy landowning families or businesspeople.

Gathered by the Matale Estate, this gaggle was Yuthura's responsibility to instruct in the ways of obedience and sacrifice, as taught by their lord and savior Darth Malak. She regarded them all with equal distaste.

Their selfish devotion to themselves ended today. A huge column of silver-armored Sith soldiers was at her back, three eager acolytes at her side. They would be needed to teach many lessons.

Yuthura faced the crowd from the wide open area at the front of the estate. "You all are here to learn what will become of your lives now that the poison of the Jedi Order has been eradicated from this fair world of Dantooine. My name is Yuthura Ban and I will be your guide into the compassionate ways of the new order. The Sith Empire wishes and hopes for the well-being of everyone, without exception, so that there need no longer be suffering or injustice in the galaxy. This bold new day will require unswerving commitment to change, obedience to the fair-minded laws of the Empire, and most importantly, selfless willingness to sacrifice in contribution to the Great Cause.

"You people of Dantooine have been given a great gift; you are able to work in order to provide for your families, you have food aplenty, and you have rarely been touched by the scourge of war, save for that which the Jedi have thrust upon you in times past. You are well-fed, well-clothed, you are blessed with the ability to provide for yourself and your fellows. This is what the Sith Empire wishes for everyone."

Yuthura let the sentiment sink in. Faces in the crowd smiled in approval. They had heard the good, the noble ideals that would become their lives, but they had yet to realize how much of their disgustingly sheltered lives would be changing. They envisioned a selfish continuation of their well-being at the expense of millions who suffered daily.

She pointed to a young dark-skinned girl in the crowd. "You, what is your name?"

"Ra-Rahasia," the girl stammered as all eyes suddenly turned to her. She was perhaps twenty-one, of the proper age to be married and caring for a husband, yet she looked as if she had no such duties and still greedily took food from her father's table each night.

Yuthura beckoned. "Come here, child."

Obviously fearful of the grim soldiers and the dark-robed acolytes, Rahasia took only a few steps forward from the rest of the crowd.

"Tell me, Rahasia, do you appreciate the enormous good fortune you have had in your life?"

"Y-yes! Of course!"

Yuthura narrowed her eyes. "Did you know that there are others, others very much like to you, who starve each night, shiver from the cold, and slave away their days as their bodies are abused and their spirits crushed by despotic overlords who hoard their wealth, never giving to the people what they deserve?"

Rahasia became visibly distressed, conscious of the seething anger in Yuthura's words if not her voice. "Well, I-"

"What gives you the right to live in wealth and comfort when so many others have nothing?" She turned her glare on the whole crowd. "What gives any of you the right? Millions upon millions live in a galaxy that deals them only endless suffering and desperate need, and yet here you live without a want in the world!

"As you have both the ability to contribute and substance so desperately needed by others, it is your sacred duty to the Empire to sacrifice for those who have nothing. The avarice of self-interest must be abolished for there to be any hope for the galaxy. When you rest with your bellies full, think of the countless children who must go hungry for your selfish want of food that could have gone to the needy."

The crowd was in shock now, but Yuthura saw even more faces—mostly the peasants—who were visibly satisfied by the message she was bringing. By contrast, the cultured landowners and their families were outright terrified. She was destroying their systems of luxury, casting light on their true wickedness.

"The time has come for Dantooine to contribute to the greater good of our Crusade. Before I leave here, I will appoint an Imperial assembly for the equal distribution of wealth among all citizens, a council to ensure all will have work, and an Imperial Governer who will see to it that all matters of State and law as prescribed by the Empire are obeyed. As subjects of the Empire, you are also obligated to provide support for our courageous soldiers who are even now fighting to bring this Great Cause to millions of the needy across the galaxy.

"No longer can such wealth and comfort as you enjoy be allowed to be hoarded for only a few. Your duty is to your fellows, not your immoral self-interest." As she spoke, Yuthura watched the crowd. As she expected, a very few were reacting to her words not with joy, not with fear, but with stark anger. They were the most dangerous ones.

Almost on cue, a man broke loose from the crowd, raising his fist defiantly as he shouted, "no, I'll not stand for you taking what's mine! We all worked for what we have, and you can't just give it someone who don't deserve it!" He turned his face to the crowd, attempting to rally them to his side. "I'm a free man, not a slave to some Sith Emp-"

Yuthura cut off his words with a violet Force pulse, blasting a hole in his chest and splattering the onlookers with gore. The man collapsed as he gurgled out the last remnants of a breath.

The Twi'lek's deadly gaze swept the crowd. "Sacrifice is your moral responsibility. You all have the same choice as he; let the Sith Empire guide you in a life of virtue, or be called to account for your depravity. The Empire is dedicated to the good of all, not the selfish desires of an individual.

"I would like to believe you all will need no further demonstration, but to make perfectly clear that such individual agendas will not be tolerated, certain examples will need to be set."

* * *

The forest beckoned.

It was something of a mystery how he'd come to this place, but it waited nonetheless, a tantalizing labyrinth of thick Catarese bamboo, brown poplars, and a smattering of expansive lodgetrees with their broad, stout trunks and yawning spread of branches. Every color was almost too bright and vivid, while midtones and shadows were contrastingly dark.

For the first time in a long while, Namenlos knew himself: He was Arravin Korsk and this was his home.

The forest beckoned. Overcome with curiosity, Arravin pushed his way through the bamboo stalks, following an elusive scent. Immediately he noticed a change in his environment. At once bright and almost painfully vibrant, the colors of the forest were suddenly bleached dry and everything took on harsh black outlines that bled themselves from the shadows. As he walked he noted that the woods themselves felt fragile, the atmosphere comparable to if he were standing on thin ice, watching cracks spread under his feet.

Instinctively, he checked his belt to be sure his knife was there. It was. He drew a measure of comfort from that, even as the sense of looming danger increased. He passed underneath the interlocked branches of a small lodgetree that was large enough for only a single person. It was vacant, but a faint scent lingered, evidence of recent habitation. Arravin considered climbing up the tree's stout trunk and seeing for himself, but the intrinsic threat he felt hovering in the air kept the one hand clenched about the leather-wrapped handle of his knife.

A lilting female laugh drifted through the trees.

Arravin's hackles rose. He turned to face the burning yellow blade of a lightsabre.

Reacting as fast as his muscles possibly could, he twisted out of the way and ducked around the trunk of the lodgetree. The blade seemed to follow him, scoring deep smoking gashes into the side of the tree.

The laugh sounded again, and Arravin found himself face to face with Bastila. In tight crimson robes and a half-cape he knew all too well, she was a hideous scarlet red against the pale grays and browns of the forest. Where her eyes had been were now a pair of putrid yellow orbs, glowing with an unseemly life of their own.

He clutched his knife and hissed, overcome for all but three words. "You filthy traitor."

Bastila smiled grimly. "You are the only traitor here, Arravin Korsk; your naïve notion of retribution and your foolish fixation on yourself, always your own problems, never seeing the bigger picture. You betrayed everything good in the galaxy, and now Lord Malak and I will see to it that your mistakes are corrected. The civilized worlds will yet be united under a banner of benevolence, and your outmoded ideas of freedom and self-interest will be left to rot with the other poisons of society."

Arravin glared at her, hesitating from the inevitable in one last moment of respect for what she'd once been. "I wasn't looking forward to this, but you know I will have to kill you, Bastila."

She laughed in his face. "Kill me? Go ahead, try if you please. Prove your own hypocrisy, and my virtue."

Before he could lunge at her, he realized with a start that her lightsabre was already embedded in his chest. He looked down in surprise. There was no pain, just a pervading sense of cold while Bastila droned in a voice that was not her own.

"Die as a meaningless, faceless, irrelevant man without a name." The curse was Malak's.

Blood, impossibly red, drenched the gray ground. On his knees, Namenlos watched his lifeblood drain away in an ever-expanding pool with him in the center. Oddly, Bastila was vanished into the ethers, leaving him alone with this spectacle.

He saw reflections in the red.

"Namenlos?" A voice called, not sharp and grating like Bastila's corrupted tone, but warm and gentle. "Juhani?" Namenlos whispered at the face in the blood.

She regarded him sadly. "You are not the only one that matters, Namenlos. Why do you not see this?"

"I-"

"Your life does not override the rights of others, Namenlos. You affect other lives, lives just as sovereign as yours. You do not think of the lives of others." Again, she was the teacher, and he was forever the student.

"Yes I do," he croaked, shivering from the cold. "I have tried to help others; the woman in the cantina, the Twi'lek at the droid shop, you. I tried to save those children at the Jedi Enclave, I tried to save everyone I could. What do you want from me?"

"You must be committed to helping others, not yourself. There is an entire galaxy needing to be saved, and you are thinking only of yourself."

"I'm not strong enough to save the galaxy!" he shouted at the pool of his blood. It hurt to feel angry at her, but he couldn't stop himself. "People should fight for their own benefit, not because someone tells them to sacrifice for others, for some undefined 'society'. People should value their own lives enough to fight for them."

Juhani looked at him with pity, pity that he couldn't grasp the simplicity of what she was saying. "Our duty is to protect the innocent and the helpless, not just ourselves. If you do not do this for them, but only yourself, then you are truly gone to the Dark Side, and I cannot help you as you did me. I am sorry, Namenlos."

His heart lurched. What must she think of him? She would believe whatever he had given her cause to believe.

Namenlos felt despair crushing him as her reflection began to fade to monochrome. He clutched at the bloody dirt, trying somehow to rescue her ephemeral presence.

Suddenly, the blood pool began to move, coalescing into a solid shape which rose up from the ground, gaining clear distinction and startling detail in just moments. It was the figure of a man, swathed in dark gray and black robes, armored with dark red plates on his chest, his face covered with a blank mask.

The thing spoke with the same empty voice as Malak. "You stand in the way of the salvation of all. Your existence must be expunged for service of the Great Cause."

This time he made no hesitation. Namenlos erupted from off his knees, smashing his body into the man's midsection and ramming home his knife as hard as he could in between the plates of armor on his side, the blade sliding past ribs and lacerating organs. Blood splashed them both, Namenlos grunting with exertion as they crashed to the ground.

He pulled his knife out a final time, after the man had stopped twitching, and wiped the gore off on dark robes. He pried at the hated mask to at least see the face of his tormentor, and with a loud crack it gave way.

The face was his own.

Shocked and overwhelmed, he jumped back, staggered—

* * *

From the depths of a dreamless sleep, Bastila sensed a violent disturbance in the Force. Her eyes snapped open with a rush of urgency. Before her mind was even fully aware of what she was doing, she was already running at a breakneck pace through the corridors to the cargo hold, where she knew Namenlos to be sleeping.

Mission was bent over his fitfully shivering form. Bastila barely registered the rest of the scene as she flew toward him, desperately hoping not to be too late. She saw him begin to move; his body tensed, his arms coiled as he began a series of unconsciously coordinated motions, a blind dance with death. His lips parted with the beginnings of a scream. His hand found the handle of his knife, started to pull the blade from its sheath.

All this happened within a fraction of a second. Bastila saw it all clear as day, while Mission was oblivious to her mortal peril.

The air began to resonate with waves of sound reverberating from a cold fury within Namenlos as the blade came free, instants away from slashing the girl's neck to the bone.

As he came awake, Bastila landed on him.

Namenlos unleashed a cry of feline rage as he slashed with his knife just as Bastila crashed against him, pinning his arms down to prevent him from murdering Mission in his blind, reflexive action.

She slammed him to the floor, her face inches from his. "Namenlos, stop!"

His eyes snapped open, two identical orbs of deep crimson red, regarding her with clear cognition. Bastila shuddered at the calculated menace behind that stare, a stare she knew remembered everything with crystal clarity.

He was Darth Revan come to life.

Then, just as suddenly as his frightening transformation had come about, the stark recognition in his eyes faded, he relaxed tense muscles and pulled several deep breaths. He started to shake with the convulsive dread of one experiencing night terrors, and was Namenlos once again.

The knife clattered to the floor.

Bastila let go of him and sat back on her heels. She looked at Mission, who had just been given the fright of her life. "Are you alright?"

The girl was white as a ghost, but she nodded shakily.

Still on the floor, Namenlos was recovering consciousness quickly and processing what had nearly happened. "What was that?" Bastila asked him. "I felt a disturbance and came as fast as I could."

Namenlos groaned, as if in agony. "I had a bad dream," he said after a moment. He shook his head while he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't really remember it—it's gone, now."

Bastila was deeply troubled. She was beginning to wonder if her accompanying Namenlos on this mission was a good idea under any circumstances. The identity of Darth Revan was not destroyed. She had seen it, and it still had power. There was no longer any way for her to be certain that Namenlos remembered nothing, even if he so said.

And again it was her fault. It had been a calculated risk on her part to attempt to retrieve those buried pieces of his mind trapped in hers. Now some had found their way back into his.

He was a ticking time bomb.


	21. Tattoo

_Tattoo_

It was a slow day in the cantina.

Wilted as if from the crushing heat of the day outside, the Bith band played even more lethargically than usual, a soporific tune almost by accident escaping from the confines of their dreary instrumentation, sapping both energy and motivation from those unfortunate enough to be in its range. Though he was no connoisseur of Bith music himself, Bandon was sure he'd heard far better in much worse cantinas than this corporate-run place.

He could surreptitiously cause one of the band members to have an "accident", but his annoyance with the awful music was a small thing, and hardly worth going to the trouble over. In days past, the knowledge that he possessed such power would have made the impulse impossible to resist. Now, he was far too disciplined to carry out such an unenlightened act for no real benefit.

He was an acolyte no longer, he was not even apprentice to the champion of justice. Bandon was successor to the leadership of Great Cause itself.

So rather than messing with a Bith's bowels, Bandon sat quietly at the bar and sipped his drink while he watched galactic news on the holo overhead, listened to their hideous distortions of the truth while he mulled his faith to the cause.

"Pretty terrible music, huh?" He looked over to see a young Twi'lek sitting several stools over from him. She seemed to have read his mind.

Bandon tried a smile. "Not my kind of poison."

The girl shrugged. "Yeah, it's pretty bad, but believe me, it's nothing compared to the crap they used to play at cantinas back home." She tipped her drink at him. "It's bad, but it ain't as bad as it gets."

Bandon found himself staring at her. She reminded him of himself, some fifteen years ago. She was a streetchild, he tell that much from looking at her. She had the look, the swagger, the same rough-and-tumble attitude of the classic urchin, although she looked prodigiously better manicured than he'd ever been, before Malak saved him from that life.

"Do you come here often?" Bandon asked, as hungry for conversation as he was for the food he'd ordered ten minutes ago. Talking with acolytes was like conversing with starstruck granite slugs with infuriatingly short attention spans.

"Nah," the Twi'lek replied, "this is my first time. I'm just ducking in for a few drops. Figured I could use some liquid refreshment."

Bandon eyed her with mock suspicion, enjoying the game. "You look a bit young to be out drinking. When I was your age I couldn't even get in to places like this. Either the bouncers or the barkeeps would turn me out every time."

She giggled. "Oh, well they don't let me places neither. You just have to know what to say and how to say it, and people will believe just about anything you tell them." The girl pointed to the back of the place, where the confused barkeep was attempting to accomplish some menial task. "And of course, sometimes people can't tell you from a bantha. The poor guy's probably working triple shifts because all his buddies took the day off without notice."

Bandon's spirits fell. He'd been hoping only for conversation, but found dishonesty and exploitation instead. The callousness of it burned at his heart. He sipped his drink, contemplating whether he should punish the girl. Would she even understand her sin?

"Hey, that's a pretty nice tattoo," she remarked, indicating the ink mural on his neck.

"Do you know what it means?" he asked rhetorically. Of course she didn't. "It represents my commitment to a cause that is higher than any of our lives; the cause of justice."

He scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Originally, it was meant as a brand of shame and dishonor that the hypocrites and pharisees inflicted upon our first leader, as punishment for straying from their ways. But those of us who believe have adopted it to stand for our beliefs." He traced the snaking lines and whorls with his fingers. "The Great Cause is embodied by this mark, standing for unity through sacrifice, equality by humility, and our righteous, unchangeable destinies as unremarkable cogs in the grand machine that is galactic society."

Bandon reflexively clenched his fist and touched it to his forehead, then to his lips. "I am proud to wear this Mark."

The Twi'lek just stared at him. She probably thought him daft; Bandon didn't care. "Uh-huh," she said. "Well, good for you."

Suddenly, Bandon got a measure from the girl, his sixth and seventh senses telling him something relevant about her. There was more to her than an innocuous prank on a disabled Ithorian, she was important to... something.

"I must be boring you," he said apologetically, backtracking from his strict formalness to encourage her to lower her guard again, though he doubted she would. "Please, return to your business. I'll not bother you any more."

She huffed and slapped some credits on the counter. "No, it's okay. I was just leaving anyway."

Not a total loss. She could be followed."Well, goodbye, then. It was nice meeting you. I'm Bandon."

Her eyes darted about uncomfortably. Bandon could taste the shadow of fear creeping over her skin like parasite. He took another measure and reaffirmed his suspicions. "Nice to meet you, Bandon," she replied and quickly sidled out of the cantina.

Bandon wiped his lips and rose to follow after courteously paying his tab. He had no fear of losing the girl, now that he'd taken measure of her Force signature. He could sense inconstancies around her; she was definitely connected with something, possibly even his primary mission, unlikely as it seemed.

The one benefit of his upbringing was that it had honed his instincts to a razor's edge. With or without the Force, they were his most powerful asset, and right now they were screaming at him to take the girl in, question her, find out all she knew. But he had a chance to let the answers come out on their own, better to see for himself what she was up to before resorting to less pleasant methods. Torture had its uses, but more often than not it obscured desired truths and fabricated new ones.

He'd follow her, find out exactly who she was, what she was doing on Tatooine, who her compatriots were. Only then would he question her and make sure she confessed to the vile deeds she was perpetuating.

It might be entirely irrelevant to his task at hand, but Bandon knew better than to discount a hunch when he smelled blood.

The hunt was on.

* * *

By the time Bastila sensed him, he was nearly on top of them. Just a faint ping, something usually denoting the presence of one with the potential, something to be ignored. But as soon as it registered in her conscious mind, that minor disturbance in the Force blossomed into a whirlwind of contained energy that roiled and whipped about, and perilously close.

This one bore the mark of Malak's own hand. She was good at reading Force auras and the ways they interacted with each other—her Battle Meditation abilities hinged on affecting those very things—and this one displayed the dominating influences of the Dark Lord's teaching. Whoever he was, it was clear to her that this was no Sith to be taken lightly.

Bastila stopped dead in her tracks, while Carth, Namenlos, and Juhani continued on, blissfully unaware of the magnitude of the threat almost upon them. "Get off the street, you fools!" she hissed under her breath.

"What is it?" Carth asked as Bastila herded them all into a dimly-lit droid shop, shooting overly suspicious glances about that could only serve to alert an observer. Bastila just wordlessly pushed him in.

Revan and Juhani, the two Cathar, seemed to better understand the concept of discretion, both having plenty of experience in avoiding notice. In fact, judging by their postures and how little either had spoken during the whole time since they'd landed, they were distrustful of everything and everyone on Tatooine, which wasn't necessarily unwarranted.

Revan, especially, had been introverted and quiet since suffering that one tumultuous nightmare aboard the ship. In some ways, evidenced by his few conversations—mostly with Juhani—he was calmer now than he had been in many weeks. But he still refused to have anything to do with her save the basic necessities of handling the business of their mission.

It felt as if this was his strange way of holding her accountable for some offense that he wouldn't voice and she couldn't imagine, much less perceive. Despite her esteem of a member of the Jedi Order, and his low standing as a fallen one with nothing to his self but a knife, he had somehow usurped her. Contrary to appearances, he was in control and not she. It was like trying to tether lightning.

Even if he remembered nothing—something Bastila highly doubted—even if he remembered himself only as Namenlos, one without a name, he still knew too well how desperately eager Malak and the Sith were to get their hands on him. Both his reports of the apparition in the temple and the razing of Dantooine attested to that.

And Bastila knew Malak would be no less interested in capturing her and any other Jedi he could, in hopes of twisting them into instruments of his maleficent purpose. Their fates were thus linked, and that much Revan did understand; it was why he was willing to embark on this mission, and why she trusted him to keep to it. Unless, as she feared, his loathsome past continued to corrode his soul.

Bastila hazarded a look out to the street. She saw nothing, and was tempted to say "I sense a disturbance in the Force" but had a feeling none but she would appreciate such a seemingly vague explanation. Instead, she succinctly replied, "There is someone out there whom I believe we should avoid."

"Sith," Juhani growled in a low voice. Bastila was impressed her senses were sufficiently attuned to be able to tell. She didn't know if that was because the Cathar was skilled, or that she knew the mark of the Dark Side because she'd been there herself. It didn't really matter which, but she was unable to keep herself from thinking of the crude colloquialism 'it takes one to know one'.

"Not just any Sith, I'm afraid," Bastila clarified.

"They're all the same as far as I'm concerned," Carth remarked, keeping his hand close to his blaster. "What makes this one different?"

Bastila lowered her voice so she would not be overheard by the others in the shop. "I think he may be here specifically to hunt for us."

That was problematic as both Namenlos and Juhani were like beacons in their traditional Jedi attire, as they'd not yet had the time to purchase new, less conspicuous outfits. Any Sith worth his salt would little trouble hearing word of Jedi wandering about Anchorhead, given the numbers of bored, laid-off mineworkers and jobless slouches eager for quick and easy credits for no effort expended.

"We're not exactly low-profile," Namenlos remarked, speaking for the first time since leaving the ship. "Juhani and I are too obvious."

"Nice to see you've grown a brain," Carth quipped as he checked his blaster belt.

Before Namenlos could deliver a scathing reply, an Ithorian salesperson noticed the four of them and approached him eagerly. "_Ahh, customers! Can I interest you in purchasing one of the fine droids I have for sale?_"

"What does he want?" Namenlos asked Bastila, not understanding the alien language and clearly uncomfortable at making this known.

Bastila had no trouble with the Ithorian's speech. "To know if we want one of his droids," she translated.

Namenlos made a face. "I hate droids. Ask him if he sells anything else."

"Why?"

"Just ask him!" Namenlos snapped impatiently.

"_Oh, I have many other fine wares! I have moister vaporators from Czerka surplus, hunting equipment, and much more!_"

"He understands us just fine, Namenlos," Bastila said dryly. "And he wants you to know that he also sells hunting equipment and moisture vaporators. And much more."

"How many moisture vaporators has he sold recently?"

"_Not many, actually. I have many in stock..._"

Bastila blinked. "What?"

Wheels turned furiously behind his glossy red eyes, evaluating some internal equation she had no access to. "If you were a hermit living out in the desolate wastes of a planet such as this, wouldn't you imagine that you'd have to have some sort of source of water? You'd need vaporators, and you wouldn't go to the big corporate supply kiosks, either, because like us, you'd probably not have incredible reserves of money. You'd buy your things at a second-hand store just like this one."

"_I do not sell 'second-hand' merchandise!_" the Ithorian protested. Bastila ignored him.

"What are you saying? Do you think he might have sold vaporators to this Komad Fortuna?"

"_Komad! I know that name!_"

Bastila felt like she could eat her tongue at this moment. She turned back to the Ithorian. "Do you remember when he was here last? It's important."

He scratched his head. "_Now let me think. Sorry, I don't remember exactly when—I mean, I remember him coming here, always remember a customer, just not when it was. Um, maybe I can check the register; he always paid in dragon pearls and I always keep those on record._" The temptation to seize the forgetful shop-owner's neck and throttle him into going a little faster was nearly unbearable, but Bastila forced patience on herself. Just because she was running outside normal protocol didn't mean she had free license to give in to her impulses.

The Ithorian took his time searching his register, an old-fashioned ledger done with real paper and ink, which made things go even slower. "_I'm sorry, I can't seem to find—oh, wait a minute! Tannis, you old dog, come over here!_"

There was a crash in the back of the store. "Ya need somethin', boss?" yelled a voice with an almost exaggerated drawl that sounded like a mix of several different accents.

"_I can't seem to remember when it was that the bloke with all the dragon pearls was here last._" He waved the book accusingly."_This blasted ledger is from six years ago!_"

A man in greasy coveralls poked a head of disheveled salt-and-pepper hair out of the back. "Well, a'course it is, boss. Ya need to get the one from the top of the stack for the recent logs." The man gave Bastila and Juhani a lop-sided grin. "Hallo there, ladies, my name's Tannis. Ah'm Mister 'Thorian's resident droid repairman. He brings in a lot of sand-blasted pieces of junk them Jawas gives 'im, an' ah'm the one who gits 'em back in workin' order."

Namenlos cleared his throat to catch the man's attention. "Good to know, Mister Tannis. Do you remember when the old man named Komad came in?"

Tannis backed up a few steps, noticing Namenlos for the first time. It certainly wasn't hard to find such a visage intimidating, especially when his displeasure was so evident. "Yeah, ah remember him. Tried to take 'im to the cantina with me, but he weren't one for the ladies, if ya know what ah mean?" He chuckled nervously to himself. "Er, perhaps not. Um, well, let's see if me an' ol' Mister 'Thorian here can find the register for ya."

It took the two of them another five minutes to locate the correct ledger, during which Carth wandered off to look at the droids in boredom, Namenlos edged closer to Juhani, and Bastila tapped her fingers on the counter, trying to resist the urge to strangle the both of the shop-keeps.

"_Aha! Here it is!_" the Ithorian pronounced triumphantly, brandishing a slightly newer-looking leatherbound book, which he immediately began leafing through, under the supervision of the drawling Tannis.

"A'right, so it looks like your man came in 'bout five months ago, purchased that troublesome old HK-47 droid and some parts for 'is T-350A vaporators. Now, those're some mighty old pieces o' equipment, but ah tell ya, they don't make 'em like they used to. I swear, the old T-300 series could pull a liter from a block o' sandstone the size of your-"

"That's wonderful," Bastila interrupted. "How often does he come here?" she asked.

"_Oh, well let me look..._"

"Best guess?"

Tannis shrugged. "Ah'd say 'bout once every six or seven months he comes here. Some o' the other places he'll go by a bit more frequently. He don't git grain here, that's for darn sure."

"So he just comes, buys his things with a few dragon pearls, and then leaves? You don't have any idea where he lives?"

"Oh, I 'spect just about everyone knows where he lives; out in the Dune Sea's where!"

"_But Tannis has been out to his place once or twice, before,_" the Ithorian put in.

"Is that so?" Bastila asked the grease-monkey.

Tannis nodded. "Yep. Ah been out there a few times. Didn't always work for Mister' Thorian, ya know; ah used to be with the Czerka surplus market a block over from here. That's where he gits his foodstuffs, and every once in a while needs someone to drive a company vehicle out to 'is place to deliver some goods he couldn't take himself."

"We would really appreciate it if you-" Bastila was interrupted by the sudden chiming of her comlink. "Excuse me." She turned away and opened the channel.

_"Bastila, you there?"_ It was Mission, and she sounded worried.

"Yes, I read you, Mission. What is it?" she said in a low voice.

_"I'm with Big Z and Canderous back at the ship. We got all the stuff you wanted us to get; you know, food, and clothes, and stuff. Anyway, we were getting everything onto the ship, and I think someone's been watching us."_

Bastila's heart missed a beat. "Say again, Mission?"

_"I think someone's watching us. Canderous says he thinks we're 'under surveillance'. Anyway, all I know is Zaalbar saw some creepy-looking guys glancing in our direction, and I don't know, it just feels like there are eyes on me all the time, now."_

It really was amazing how even those not sensitive to the Force could still feel its machinations. The girl was in trouble, no doubt about that. "Mission. listen carefully, I want you to get back to ship-"

_"Already done."_

"Good. You and the others, stay in the ship. Don't do anything on your own, we're coming back to you."

_"Bastila, what's going on?"_ Now she sounded scared. The girl had a better grasp of the situation than she realized.

"Mission, I will deal with this. You just stay put."

_"No, tell me what's going on!"_

Bastila sighed. "Mission, there is at least one Sith here in Anchorhead. I felt his presence earlier, and it's possible he may have targeted you."

There was a pause on the line. Then a very small, _"What do I do?"_

"As I said, stay put. I will take care of this."

Another long pause. _"Okay."_

Bastila clicked the comlink off and returned to the others.

"What was that all about?" Carth asked.

"We have some trouble," she answered. "We'll have to take this up later," she said to Tannis and the Ithorian.

"_But-!_"

Namenlos stopped her. "Bastila, we can't back out of this now. We're too close." There was such intensity in his face, but as always, it was too narrowly applied. He was not considering the ramifications of his actions, not thinking of others, only himself.

"There is a Sith on the loose in this city, and he has targeted our ship. I have to deal with him or we run the risk of becoming trapped on this planet. And more importantly, Mission's life is potentially at risk."

To her surprise, he didn't argue her point. "Well, then you go. Let's split up," he suggested.

Carth came forward to protest. "Now, wait just a minute-"

"We split up," Namenlos cut him off. "Bastila, you and Carth return to the ship, make sure everything and everyone is safe. Juhani and I will try to find Komad."

Bastila squirmed. The last time she'd left those two alone together, the results had nearly been disastrous. If either of them slipped, even the tiniest bit... she didn't want to think about the consequences.

But the danger was real and potent either way she chose. The Sith presence in Anchorhead was a disturbing reminder of the mission that loomed over all their heads; stopping the Sith crusade. If their ship were taken they would literally be at the mercy of the Sith, trapped and unable to flee. They also needed to find the Star Forge, or their whole purpose here would be for nothing, and Komad was the only lead they had.

She realized Namenlos was correct in his reasoning. Her decision was made. "Carth, you and I will go back to the ship." She silenced his protests with a raised hand and approached Tannis again, preparing to use a little extra persuasion if need be to achieve her ends. "I need you to take my two colleagues to see Komad, please."

As it turned out, no intervention was necessary. Tannis would probably have been happy to do whatever she wanted without much questions. "Sure thing. Like ah said, ah've been there a few times. Gotta warn ya, though, the ol' chap's not used to havin' too many visitors. 'E's a bit eccentric, usually just likes to talk to his trophies when no one's around, which is most o' the time."

Tannis eyed the two Cathar, his gaze spending a little extra time on Juhani's bosom, which drew a glare from Namenlos. "You two don't look dressed for desert travel. That dern sun'll fry the skin right off ya, wearin' stuff like that. Lemme see if ah can find something in the back for ya, and then ah'll warm up the ol' speeder."

* * *

Namenlos didn't like this Tannis character, not one bit. It wasn't just his grating voice or his irritating way of speech, his leering eyes, or even his general lack of hygiene. Something about the man put him on edge. His insistent curiosity could be part of it. Tannis chatted almost nonstop while he took him and Juhani through the back of the store, trying to engage them in conversation. He made an especially concerted effort to draw a reaction from Juhani, who feigned ignorance of his thinly-veiled advances.

As he handed them some sort of gauzy linen robes, Tannis noticed the lightsabres hanging at their belts. "So you both're Jedi, ah see?"

Namenlos rudely grabbed the garments from the man's grubby hands, patience wearing thin. "Do I look like Jedi?"

Tannis drew back momentarily, reevaluating. "So, you'd be with the Sith, then?" he offered with much extra caution.

"Do labels really matter? You said you'd take us to see Komad, are you going to do that or are we going to stand here and have pointless chit-chat?" Namenlos retorted roughly.

Getting the message, Tannis snapped back to business. "Alrighty, let me just git ya both into your proper desert garb. It's pretty simple. Ya just wrap it around as best ya can, try to cover as much o' your faces as possible." He demonstrated by draping large doubled folds over each of Namenlos' shoulders and cinching it at the waist with a tan sash, then helped him wind another fold around his head and face. "Why don't ah let you help the lady into hers, and ah'll get the speeder running."

"That would be appreciated, I'm sure we can handle this ourselves," Juhani answered. She put a calming hand on Namenlos' arm, keeping him from voicing the abrasive comment on his lips.

Tannis vanished out the back.

Namenlos buckled his belt around his waist and checked both his weapons out of habit. The desert garb was surprisingly light for its bulk, and it breathed well, actually cooling him instead of locking in the murderous heat. Juhani needed little help to mimic his actions as she dressed herself for desert travel, taking less time than he had to get the whole outfit assembled.

Seeing out the thin gap between folds of the garment gave him a strange sensation, something vaguely familiar which stopped just short of a frail recollection. Thoughts sank back into inky obscurity moments before coming into full light, remaining elusive. It wasn't comforting, but not quite disconcerting either; it was simply odd.

Tannis poked his head back in. He was wearing tan garb of his own, but the drawl of his voice made it easy to tell it was him. "Well, come on, now. Let's take us a little jaunt out to the Dunes, meet us a hermit!"

The speeder looked old and well-worn, but serviceable. Open-air cockpit, with a long, rounded front end and three large engines in the back, it looked like something that had seen hard use

and a reputation for being dependable, but maybe a little finicky. Tannis climbed in the front, into the driver's seat, while Namenlos and Juhani seated themselves in the back. It stuttered at first, then mellowed into a low roar as the loud engines cranked up.

"Sorry 'bout the noise!" Tannis yelled unnecessarily to them.

They stopped only briefly at the gates of the settlement. Tannis moved quickly through after flashing some sort of pass at the Czerka guards stationed at the entrance, and then, abruptly, they were on the dunes, Anchorhead vanishing over the horizon with alarming swiftness. The Dune Sea was before them.

After gunning the engines for a few minutes, Tannis throttled back and let the speeder coast, reducing the awful engine noise by half. The wind was hot and the sun beat down like a physical force, but Namenlos couldn't help noticing the eccentric beauty of the desert, the odd charm that came with rolling dunes as far as the eye could see. It wasn't somewhere he'd like to spend fifty-odd years, but as a spectator, he enjoyed the view.

"_Misa,_" he whispered, not knowing why.

"Pretty nice, ain't it?" Tannis crowed from the front seat. "Most o' this here's Sand People territory. I give it a wide berth, an' we always cut the engines to reduce sound when passin' by, otherwise, they can hear you for miles away. People've been killed who got too close, or made too much noise. If you ain't careful you can run into a sarlacc pit, but don't worry, I won't drive us into any holes. I was a hunter for 'bout ten years..."

He just talked and talked. Namenlos wanted to punch the back of his head, if it would make him stop talking so he could enjoy the scenery. Juhani must have been thinking the same thing, but she did nothing. Their eyes met silently in acknowledgment of each other's exasperation.

"Didn't you say you need to keep the noise down?" Namenlos couldn't help but ask.

Tannis' head flicked back. "Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If you don't cut your engines down quiet—"

"Well, if you're just going to talk so much it's a wonder the whole desert doesn't know we're here!" Namenlos fired at him, unable to contain his irritation any longer.

"I was just pointing out a couple things of interest," Tannis mumbled and quickly fell silent.

Namenlos looked back at Juhani. She might have smiled in relief, it was hard to tell under the desert garb.

The trip took almost two hours, but Tatooine's twin suns weren't close to dipping below the horizon yet. Namenlos saw nothing in sight, but Tannis assured him they were close after moving into the foothills of quite an impressive range of mountains and passing several landmarks—which he fastidiously pointed out.

Tannis slowed the speeder. "Uh-oh," he mumbled.

"What? What is it?" Namenlos growled as Tannis stopped.

"This ain't exactly the way I remember this lookin'."

Namenlos vaulted out of the vehicle and looked around. There was nothing in sight. Only sand, sand, and more sand. There was nothing to indicate anything had ever been here, just a perfect drift of scorching sand.

His hackles rose.


	22. Hold Down The Storm

_Hold Down the Storm_

It was deathly quiet in the docks. Elsewhere in the small, densely-populated city of Anchorhead the raucous din was interminable. Thousands of people pushing, shoving, arguing, fighting, trading, and bargaining created a constant backdrop of blank noise. But in the docks there was a still silence that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickle with unease. Bastila felt eyes surveilling her and Carth as they hurried for their docked ship, summoned by Mission's near-frantic call.

There was a dark presence plain as a thundercloud stalking the place. Bastila suspected that even the regular workers had sensed the fundamental threat looming in their midst and had fled for on reason or another that their minds had invented to disguise the truth.

Yet, she had told Mission to stay right here, not to leave the ship. She'd ordered her to remain in an insidious trap.

Bastila longed to clutch the heavy hilt of dual-bladed lightsabre, but she feared doing so would alert the Sith that she was aware of him, and thus give away whatever advantage she might yet hold, so she forced herself to keep up the pretense of ignorance. She noted Carth's hand staying well clear of the blaster on his belt, but every muscle in his body had to be coiled in readiness to respond to any sudden threat.

Hard-packed dirt, clods of sand, and gravel crunched underfoot as they approached the _Ebon Hawk_, its maroon-gray superstructure ominous and foreboding, the opaque cockpit windows offering no view inside. The muffled, faraway noises of the city lent a surreal quality to the entire scene before her, heightening her degree of awareness and tension.

Bastila was deeply worried. Mission had made no further calls after her first alert, and aside from her general perception of a Sith's undeniable presence, Bastila's sixth and seventh senses could offer her no other information on what it was she faced, or whether her companions were even still alive.

The cargo ramp lay open. Bastila hesitantly set her feet on the path, and entered the ship.

Inside, there was no more noise than there had been outside—less, even. Finally she could stand it no longer, and eagerly grasped the handle of her lightsabre. Carth likewise pulled out his blaster and nodded.

After a brief inspection, Bastila concluded that no one was in the ship's garage or the cargo bay, and she slowly moved into the main hold, scanning each room with all her myriad senses. She saw Canderous at the round table in the center, leaning on its surface with both hands. He didn't look up when they entered the room.

"We're here, Mandalorian," she announced in a cautious voice. "Where is Mission?"

He didn't respond. In fact, the Mandalorian seemed frozen in place where he was. Again, the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled with dread.

"Carth, something is wrong here," she confided. When the Republic man made no answer, she turned to look at him.

He had become a living, breathing statue. Carth had frozen in place as he was in the process of reaching for her to catch her attention, his eyes registering recognition of a threat. He was leaning slightly forward, about to lunge in front of her and place himself in harm's way. His mouth open partially, he had not quite started his shout of warning.

Bastila now recognized all the signs of a Force stasis field.

Without another thought, she clicked on both her amber blades. As she did so, she registered movement in her peripheral vision; a figure coming into view as if melting away from the very walls. Bastila whirled about to face the threat.

He was tall, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, not unlike Malak, but Bastila could see from his complete face and jawline that it was not he. The man bore strong resemblance to the Dark Lord regardless, with a smoothly shaven scalp and dark, penetrating eyes. His strong jaw was complemented by a thick beard and a hideous tattoo covering his entire neck that displayed a number of visual motifs that were strikingly familiar.

In that one instant when she captured a complete mental snapshot of the character facing her, Bastila had no doubt that this was Darth Malak's apprentice.

She raised her lightsabre, but he was already one step ahead of her. The man's hands came up and she was hit with a blast of kinetic force like she'd never felt before, ripping her off her feet and hurling her across the compartment to slam into the opposite wall.

Breath left her lungs in a gigantic whoosh, and she felt a hairline fracture in one of her ribs send a flare of pain through her side. The pain would have to wait, however, as she saw the Sith coming at her with frightening speed, igniting a deathly red blade of his own.

Having no time for anything else, Bastila dragged herself away from his first murderous downward lunge with a crude Force pull. She quickly found her feet and met his crimson blade with her gold.

Now that they were on even footing, the Sith attacked with vicious intensity. Bastila found herself backing away from his wild assault, unprepared for his combination of traditional and unorthodox techniques.

As she desperately parried his blows, Bastila dodged his sporadic hail of impromptu missiles. He threw container lids, heavy tools, spare or broken ship parts; he knew she couldn't evade them all and still keep him at bay. A sharp piece of sheet metal sliced her across the abdomen, causing her to cry out in pain, and he lunged for the opening in her guard.

Bastila stopped him cold with a sudden, intense burst of violent energy which made him stumble. She pressed her own attack, utilizing her two blades to their greatest effect and forcing him to parry. They clashed blades again and again, their lightsabres scorching the walls where they brushed against the surface of the bulkheads.

She drove at him repeatedly, trying to open up more distance between them. When she could, she began hurling some of his own missile back at him. She had to break his awesome concentration somehow, otherwise he would go back on the offensive and sooner or later she must be overwhelmed. No Sith she'd ever faced had such magnitude of strength to be able to sustain multiple stasis fields and fight so effectively at the same time as he hurled exterior objects. She was in grave danger until she could somehow disable or kill him.

An unexpected bolt of lightning sizzled through her. As it blasted through her defenses, Bastila tried to will her fingers not to let go of her lightsabre as her muscles convulsed uncontrollably. But it was no use, the electricity coursing through her body completely isolated her limbs from her brain's command. She could do little more than writhe on the ground in utter agony.

The Sith loomed over her, victorious. He scooped up her lightsabre and tossed it across the room as he tormented her with another brief blast of wicked blue lightning.

"Bastila Shan," he breathed the name with great reverence. "Do you know that you are legendary among the Sith? You made the rise of Malak possible."

Bastila's teeth chattered against themselves as her body seized when she wanted was to draw her face in a defiant glare.

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bandon. As you might have realized, Malak is my master, the savior of all people."

The convulsions relented sufficiently for Bastila to spit, "Malak is a despicable murderer!"

"Lies!" Bandon shouted with venom. "Malak will bring peace and prosperity to the galaxy, only you Jedi would still cling desperately to power at the expense of others!" Bandon viciously backhanded her across the face when she tried to rise.

Bastila tried to crawl toward her lightsabre, only to find herself frozen in his stasis web. With mounting horror, she realized that Bandon had been in control the entire time. Helpless to resist, Bandon lifted her up and pinned her against the wall with a field so strong it felt like she'd been impaled by a six-foot wide marble pillar.

"Now you are going to answer my questions, Jedi Bastila," Bandon declared as he dragged someone by the neck and hurled her to the ground at Bastila's feet. It was Mission.

"I won't waste my time trying to break you with violence; your Jedi mind conditioning won't permit you to talk under torture." A peremptory lightning bolt flickered from his hand to the floor, causing Mission to start in fright. "But like all Jedi your weakness for mercy will be your undoing. I will ask you once, and if you refuse to answer, your friend will be doing the rest of the asking for me. Now where is Revan, please?"

* * *

Tannis scratched his head in confusion, looking this way and that as if he expected the hermit's cabin to be hiding somewhere, or to suddenly appear over the horizon and take them unawares. Namenlos appeared to be working himself into a nervous panic, almost. Juhani shared his unease, but not his franticness.

"Perhaps we have gotten lost," she suggested. That pacified Namenlos somewhat, but Tannis was unconvinced. Behind the ghostlike shroud around his face, the quaint man was inscrutable.

"This is wrong," Namenlos growled suspiciously.

"Wait, wait, wait," Tannis protested. "Ah'm sure I must've just stopped one hill short. It's prob'ly around here somewhere. C'mon! Let's just walk a bit." Immediately, he set off for the crest of the nearest dune.

Juhani started off after him, and Namenlos followed reluctantly. The dune overlooked a narrow gully, and from the top she could see the unmistakable spires of moisture vaporators rising over the sandy ledges slightly ahead. There looked to be just one final bend obscuring the lodge that was sure to be there. So they were not in the wrong place at all. She was relieved.

Namenlos climbed down into the gully after her. "Where's Tannis?" he asked.

Juhani took a startled look around. He had again vanished. "I don't-"

Consternation bubbled to the surface once more. A vague smell caught her attention, and after inhaling a deep breath her initial suspicion was reaffirmed; smoke. Something had been burned here or close by, and very recently. Namenlos smelled it too, and his hiss of displeasure reminded her of how much he hated fire.

"Tannis!" she called out, trying to fight down her surging unease.

"I don't like this, Juhani," Namenlos said as they edged along the gully, Tannis was nowhere in sight. Despite her efforts she was getting infected by his pessimism. This did not feel as it should.

"Nor do I," she admitted. "I feel..."

Namenlos suddenly froze beside her. "Like we're being watched." He nodded up toward the ledge ahead and hissed.

Black-robed figures lined a rocky outcropping that commanded a view into the whole gully, five of them, their faces hooded, and radiating uncouth hostility. They held the high ground, Juhani realized, and she and Namenlos had unwittingly trapped themselves.

One of the five stepped forward. "So these are the Jedi, then?" he asked a sixth figure who skulked behind the five of them, his voice snide and condescending.

"Yes, Master Shaardan," came the accented reply which Juhani knew could only belong to one person.

"Well done, Mister Tannis, Lord Malak thanks you," Shaardan said with a hungry look toward Juhani.

"You filthy, lying _styetvah_!" Namenlos roared. "I trusted you!"

"Aye, ya shouldn't have," Tannis answered regretfully.

"Mister Tannis has done his duty to the Sith Empire by reporting illegal Jedi," Shaardan pronounced imperiously. "Lord Malak does not permit Jedi to roam free in his realms, and he has promised a great reward for the capture of any such illegals."

His face might have been covered, but Juhani could read him like an open book, her long hours of training at the Jedi Enclave having not gone to total waste. All five of these Sith were raw, largely untested, but viciously hungry for conquest. They were seething vessels of chaotic hate and hubris, liberated by the belief that they could do no wrong, for no concept of wrong existed in their minds. Shaardan in particular, had intentions for her that were all too easy to fathom, without even the aid of her Force perception.

She hissed in challenge and ignited her lightsabre, which still wore a blade of bright crimson. Shaardan and his other Sith leaped from their ledge to land in the gully, surrounding her and Namenlos on all sides. Their blades came out, reds and yellows waving threateningly as the Sith hemmed them in. Namenlos' hand strayed close to the lightsabre at his belt, but it was only meant for training and he was woefully undertrained; the blade would do him little good. Even against raw Sith Juhani feared he stood little chance. They would cut him to pieces.

Instead of drawing his sabre, he pulled his knife and settled in a defensive posture at her back while Juhani tried to put herself between him and as many Sith as she could. Mentally, she rehearsed the motions of battle despite its futility. Even in the slightest of conflicts, pre-planned strategy rarely applied, and no enemy would cooperate with one's battle plan, so it was better to adapt on the fly, something Juhani had grown up doing.

The Sith circled and she and Namenlos counter-circled, trying to present the least vulnerable target to the Sith's position of greatest strength and so forestall the inevitable fight of five against two. Shaardan and the other Sith shouted insults, but Juhani let the words deflect off her mental barriers built up over a lifetime of racial persecution. She'd listened to the temptations of the Dark Side once, and it would not claim her again. She held her ground and answered them not a word.

The Sith circled them and she would counter. The deadlock continued.

The sound of urgent footfalls caught her ears. Juhani's eyes darted for a look up at the ridge, where she saw Tannis dashing away, apparently having not the stomach to watch a sure slaughter.

Shaardan noticed his flight as well, and chuckled in amusement. "Mekel, Rey-al, catch the insipid traitor. I am not finished with him," he said officiously. "We will handle these two."

As two of the Sith started to break away, Namenlos whispered into her ear. He had something in his hand. "Take it," he said, and immediately started moving.

He lunged for the gap as it appeared briefly in the Sith's encirclement, drawing over a third who tried to cut him off from escape. But Juhani realized in the same split-second he made his move that escape was not his objective. As he had begun to move, he tossed an object into the air at her. She pulled it into her hand and instinctively switched on the weak lightsabre blade.

With the third distracted by Namenlos, Juhani engaged the remaining two. They came at her both at once, looking to engage her in straight-up combat and overwhelm her through force of arms, but Juhani dipped low to the ground and slipped between them as they slashed into empty air with their sabres. Pirouetting, she bit both her blades into Shaardan's hasty guard and threw him back several paces, then dodged around the second Sith's angry swing, slashing the blue training sabre across his side to inflict a nasty burn on his ribs.

Both her opponents staggered, Juhani scooped up air and sand in a net of Force energy and hurled it at them, hoping to blind them for a few seconds and thus buy her time to aid Namenlos. She saw him dodging swings from a hungry yellow blade and darting lithely around his opponent looking for opportunities to strike with his knife.

Juhani gave the third Sith a hard Force push and then quickly turned her attention back to Shaardan and his other accomplice. She sidestepped one attack, took a fleeting stab at Shaardan, then trapped the other Sith's lightsabre between her two and neatly severed his hand. The Sith howled in pain and let loose a blast of lightning from his other hand, which Juhani blocked with the crossed blades of her two sabres. Some of the bolts shot past her and hit the Sith whose hand she'd cut off, but Shaardan simply sent more and Juhani continued to block.

The desert air began to fill with the smell of cooked flesh.

Shaardan finally halted his lightning once he realized it was an ineffective measure. Without giving him a moment's break, Juhani flung her blue sabre at him like a baton and pulled the dead Sith's lethal red blade to her hand. She leaped, somersaulting through the air to scythe both her blades downward with near-unstoppable force. Shaardan parried, but the blow knocked him back several more paces.

Juhani had backed him up to the sloping walls of the gully, and at last he stumbled. One swipe took off one of his feet, and the next thrust went through his chest. Behind her she heard the rasp of steel grinding against bone and a third Sith collapsed to the blood-soaked sand at Namenlos' feet.

She looked at him and he looked and her and said one word. "Tannis."

They both dashed back up the dune to find the remaining two Sith and their traitorous guide.

* * *

It should have seemed like pure luck that Arravin found himself drawing the blade of his knife against the Sith's throat, feeling it bite into the flesh, and seeing his enemy fall unstrung. But from the moment the five Sith had surrounded them, a cool and detached part of his mind had known exactly what to do at each step of the way. He knew he couldn't use the training lightsabre at his belt, and exactly why he kept that with him he wasn't sure, but he had instantly known Juhani would make better use of it than him. Better he should stick with his one dependable weapon: his knife.

Tannis' cowardly flight was the one bit of good fortune he hadn't counted on, and it evened the odds considerably, and as soon as he saw the opening, it was apparent what he had to do. He tossed Juhani his lightsabre and surged for the gap, and as soon as he saw the yellow blade coming for him he ducked and rolled and dodged, not trying to block because the sabre blade would cut through his knife in an instant. He knew enough how to avoid an angry thug, and even though this one came at him with the weapon of a Sith, the principle was the same: use quickness and never engage directly.

He kept his arms tucked in close and his body in a half-crouch, so he could spring with his leg muscles and and play to more of his strengths. Somehow he never gave thought to shielding against some other Force attack, but the murderous lightning never came, nor did he feel his throat sharply constricting. He remembered the way the Sith governor of Taris had fought with finesse and skill which had taken even Bastila by surprise.

In comparison, this Sith fought like a dockyard worker swinging a broomstick, and Arravin found he could skip around his attacks with relative ease, his lighter frame giving him the distinct maneuverability advantage, and then he could dart in to make quick slashes with his knife.

It felt perfectly natural when, after cutting the Sith's sword arm at the elbow, he grabbed him by the hood and dragged his knife across his throat. After a quick glance verified that Juhani had expertly handled her two foes, he remembered the other two Sith who had gone after Tannis.

Arravin wanted the man's blood.

He and Juhani took off back up the slope and toward the man's speeder. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a voice telling him that if he killed Tannis then he and Juhani would be stranded, as he had no knowledge of how to pilot the landcraft and he doubted Juhani would either, but his need to kill burned those thoughts away.

Juhani reached the crest of the dune before him, and he saw a flash of lightning deflect off her raised lightsabre. She spun, slashed with her blades, and an arm fell to the sand still clutching a pale yellow lightsabre in its grip. Arravin sprang to the top just as the second Sith launched himself at Juhani.

Tannis, seeing Arravin coming with murder on his face, produced a venerable old blaster pistol, took it in a two-handed grip and fired. His shot found the back of the second Sith, who sprawled to the ground where Juhani buried her sabre into the base of his spine. Arravin halted.

"Eh, heh, look I ain't no fan of them Sith-" Tannis started to say in his infuriating accent, but Arravin would have none of it. Fury took hold of him and he smashed his elbow into Tannis's face, sending him to the ground.

"Namenlos, stop!" Juhani shouted, but he did not hear or acknowledge her. He grabbed a fistful of Tannis's face shroud, pulled it loose from the man's unruly head, then punched him again in the nose. His knuckles were bloody, but his rage did not abate. Growling, he heaved Tannis up by his shoulders and viciously headbutted him.

"That is enough!" Juhani was pulling at his clothes now, trying to separate him from the traitorous scum on the ground, but he broke free of her placating grasp, snarling.

Tannis tried to stand, but Arravin hit him with a Force blast almost without thinking. He was on him again in an instant, his knife to the man's throat. His face was inches from Tannis's bloodied, bruised, yet impassive visage.

"Why!" he hissed in anger.

"You'd have done the same thing, fella," Tannis answered. "I've got a family to take care of. Didn't know that, did ya? When ya live only by the indulgence of the Sith Empire and rely on stayin' in their good graces to keep your family safe and food on the table, ya have to make some choices ya hate yourself for."

"Namenlos, please, let him be," Juhani pleaded.

Tannis's voice was strangely cold, he seemed almost not to care anymore. "You don't what it's like to have to live off nothing, because the Sith they take what's yours, what you've earned from honest hard labor, and then give it to whatever slacker or thug don't want to work they decide deserves it. Yeah, I know I'm no good person, but I do what I got to to keep my family cared for as best I can."

An image flashed to Arravin's mind: He was crouching in a rusty storage container, wearing filthy rags and feeding on garbage from the streets of Taris, and he was grateful for what little he had to subsist on. Living off of nothing was well familiar to him; it was how he'd lived since as long as he could remember, the Jedi's intervention had not changed much of anything, least of all who he was.

Sickened with himself, Arravin dropped his knife in the sand and let Juhani pull him away from Tannis, who took to his feet and dusted himself off awkwardly.

"Look, I..." Tannis tried to speak but failed, and Arravin could not bring himself to look at him.

"Go. Just go," he told the man. "I don't ever want to see your face again, Tannis."

Tannis nodded his head. "And you won't have to-" he was interrupted by the sound of a lightsabre igniting and a red blade suddenly poking through his chest at an upward angle. He gurgled a final breath and then fell away to reveal the one-armed Sith dying on the ground behind him. Holding his lightsabre in a shaky hand, the Sith spat on Tannis's corpse. "Die, blasphemer!"

Hot fury pounded through Arravin with renewed vigor. He reached his hand out and found a lightsabre leap into his grasp and a blade the color of blood shooting from its tip. He swung the weapon with a roar and in one swipe sent the Sith's head tumbling into the sand.

He turned from the dead and did not look back. "Come on," he said, switching off his new lightsabre and clipping it to his belt, "we still need to see Komad."

Juhani looked at the carnage about them and shuddered once. He knew how she felt but there had been little choice. Arravin started toward the hermit's remote dwelling.

* * *

Komad's lodge was a burnt out ruin, only a blackened skeleton remaining where the ashes had already been scoured by the wind-driven sands of the Dune Sea. It looked like an old wreck, but he could still smell the smoke. This was a recent burning, two days, three at the most, he'd missed Komad by only that much. Now again he had nothing, nothing he could fight Malak with, no sense of direction.

"It's all gone," Arravin said disbelievingly. He dug his fingers into the ash-filled sand and felt his hope draining away.

"Komad may still be alive," Juhani reminded him, her expression unreadable as she poked at some of the larger pieces of rubble. He wondered if she believed that.

"Where else could he be?" he asked. "Even if he escaped, this is days old, he'd have died out on the dunes by now." The futility of it all was numbing and only beginning to sink in.

"We don't even know this is where the hermit lives. Whatever his reasons, Tannis deliberately led us into an ambush, this is likely not even Komad's home but a convenient place for the Sith to capture Jedi. Namenlos, we must not give up hope."

Arravin recognized her reasoning; it was desperation. She was still clinging to hope. Had he not been so bitterly disappointed he might have smiled at the change of roles; she being the resolute one and he the one in despair. But a sweet sentiment was not going to remove the menace of Malak from their lives.

"I am not namenlos, Juhani, I have a name..." A faint sound caught his attention, distracting him from his correction. Arravin shielded his eyes against the glare of the two suns, searching for the source of the familiar whining hum in the sky. With a start he realized it was indeed the Ebon Hawk, although why it was appearing in the horizon—approaching quite fast—and neither Bastila nor any of the others had contacted him or Juhani in hours was puzzling.

Even stranger was that they couldn't know where to find them, as Tannis was the one who brought them out here and only he knew the way. Unless he'd covertly transmitted the coordinates to Bastila before or after selling them out to the Sith... No, that didn't make sense. Tannis had been a desperate man, but a frightened one. The Sith bought his cooperation by threatening his family and his livelihood; he wouldn't have put them again in jeopardy so flagrantly. And furthermore Bastila never told the man how to contact them.

He continued to stare at the oncoming ship, wondering why things weren't adding up.

"Namenlos," Juhani said in a suspicious tone, "that ship should not be here."

"I know," he replied, no longer concerned with telling her his real name and frustrated with himself for not seeing what was in front of his face.

There was something wrong with this—all of this. Tannis knowing exactly where to find the hermit's dwelling, their presence betrayed to the Sith, Komad's lodge having been burned and destroyed mere days before his arrival, and now the mysterious appearance in the sky of the Ebon Hawk—there was a simple explanation for the whole chain of events but he wasn't seeing it.

"This is not good," she insisted.

"I know."

Arravin started going over the whole situation again when it hit him full force like a ton of steelcrete: The entire planet was a trap.

He eyed the ship, now almost close enough that he could make out the reflections on his opaque cockpit windows. It read "Ebon Hawk" on the side, but Arravin was certain it was no friendly ship.

"Juhani-" He was about to tell her to run, but she was already grabbing him by his loose sleeve and pulling him back to the low gully. Needing little encouragement, Arravin took off after her, racing for the dubious safety of the ancient ravine. The landspeeder, he thought. Maybe they could outrun whoever was pursuing them. In any case, he indulged the urge to run, to escape in any way possible.

The Sith were coming.

The hum of the Ebon Hawk's engines grew to a flat roar as the spacecraft came closer and closer. Arravin and Juhani were only about halfway down the gully to Tannis's landspeeder when he felt a tremor shake the ground and loosen sand and debris from the walls which settled into deep drifts at the bottom, weighing down their feet and ankles already swathed in the heavy folds of fabric. The engine noise became impossibly loud, reverberating off the walls as a whoosh of displaced air tumbled into the ravine, kicking up more sand and dust until it was nearly impossible to see.

Arravin grabbed hold of Juhani and threw them both to the ground as the Hawk plowed into the side of the ravine with a spectacular splash of sand, dust, rocks, and large clumps of orange clay. Covering her beneath him, he protected his head with his hands against the flying debris while the ship continued to grind across the sand above, its nose crunching into the opposite side of the ravine and continuing forward until the whole ship lay atop the cleft in the ground.

The air stilled, though Arravin could still hear the thrumming of the Hawk's engines idling. He blinked his eyes to clear his vision, but the airborne dust still hung in a thick cloud. He felt something move beneath him and realized with a start that Juhani was completely buried in the scree.

Arravin felt a brief moment of complete terror, then calmed himself, dug about with his hands until he could feel the outline of her shoulders, then started scooping sand away from her neck and her face. If not for the special desert garb Tannis gave them, they both would be choking on the sand, if not suffocating. Arravin said a silent thank-you to Tannis for that.

After a minute, he was rewarded by the sound of Juhani taking a gasping breath and could just make out her face lifting out of the sand. Arravin immediately started digging her the rest of the way out.

Juhani said something, but his ears were still ringing from the crash and the dust in the air was playing tricks on his senses. He thought he heard a pair of boots hitting the ground, but dismissed it as he hurried to get Juhani unburied.

Finally, she was able to twist partially out of the ground. She screamed at him. "Behind you!"

Arravin's senses instantly spun into high gear. His hand shot to his belt, pulled the lightsabre and ignited its crimson blade into a precise guard across his body as he twisted his torso around to face the threat.

He saw a tall, broad-shouldered figure, and then a purple-white light burned the world.

His ears popped as if from decompression, his skin tingled, his vision was of nothing but pure white, but he felt no pain. It was a curious void, but not one he was familiar with. Nor, apparently, was he alone.

As Arravin looked, he saw others encased in the whiteness, indistinct figures that blurred when he looked directly at them. One pushed forward, taking on shape and solidity as it walked toward him. Arravin recognized him to be a male Twi'lek whom he was certain he had met before, but the memory was a frustrating blank.

"You should not be here," the Twi'lek said accusingly. "Bandon hunts you, and now he has you. You would not be here otherwise."

"Bandon..." Arravin reeled as he tried in desperation to recall how he had come to this white place, feeling overwhelmingly like he had always been here. The thought frightened him. "Are you Komad Fortuna?" he asked hopefully, trying to contain his fear and remain calm.

The shade nodded. "I am." Komad's eyes narrowed. "And I know who you are."

Arravin's mouth went dry. "I need your help to stop Malak," he breathed.

"Help? Malak has won!" declared the ghost of Komad. "He is the Jedi's greatest disciple, the one who will destroy them, eradicating liberty in the name of the common good of all. What more noble a crusade could there be?"

The Jedi's vicious rhetoric cut into Arravin like a knife, such insipid fatalism igniting furious rage. "That's why I have to stop him!" he insisted. "I need to find Bindo, I have to reach the Star Forge, destroy Malak's seat of power. It's the only chance any of us have!"

Komad's shade considered him critically, then shook his head. "If you so wish to do this," he said, "then you must be willing to do whatever is necessary. I do know where to find Bindo, but the moment I tell you, Bandon will know also. You must escape the Sith Lord's grasp and reach Bindo before he does or you will have no chance. But you cannot escape Bandon on your own, you must take my life and use it bridge the gulf his hunger has placed between you and your soul.

Arravin blinked. He had just been asked to do what was impossible. "What!"

Komad's eyes burned into his. "You must use my life energy to supplement your own power. I will die so you may succeed."

He recoiled. The thought of using another's life-force in such a way seemed... evil.

"If you are not willing to do this," Komad warned, "then you will become as I am; another soul trapped within the hunger that is Lord Bandon, forever cut off from the world, unable to live or die. Neither you nor your companions will ever find Bindo or the Forge and the crusade will continue unabated until the last flickers of liberty are extinguished. When they refuse to live under Malak's rule, your friends will be executed, and he will try to turn the one you love most to his cause. If he cannot, then she too will die, but only after suffering horrors that you and I can scarcely imagine."

Arravin clenched his fists, summoning whatever power, morality, or will he had in him. All of the things he had seen and done and everything that had happened to him in the past weeks—being bitten by a rakghoul, his abduction by the Jedi, the razing of Taris, meeting Juhani on Dantooine, the fire-bombing of the academy and the murder of the children—cascaded into a numbing, crushing responsibility singing a merciless counterpart to Komad's chilling prediction, echoing back and forth through his mind.

He could not allow such a thing to happen, he would not. Not to Juhani, not to everyone in the galaxy like him who would never accept slavery to someone's corrupt vision, people who wanted to live their lives free. Arravin would not accept such a thing, not as long as there was breath in his body and perhaps beyond. He understood that this was not just about his life, but about everything he loved and cared about.

Arravin's choice was made. "What must be done?" he asked.

"Do nothing, the Force will do," Komad answered. "More strictly speaking, in a state such as this your spirit can communicate directly with your source of midichloral energy, without mediation by the inefficient brain. Instinctual action requires no thought, this level of reaction is simply difficult to reach unless in a time of extraordinary duress or a moment of severe emotional passion."

Arravin didn't fully understand the shade's explanation, but he comprehended enough to recognize that direct knowledge was not what was required. Instinctive use of the Force. It was not something new, he had done it before when he needed it most. There could be no greater duress than having his soul ripped from his body to feed a dark lord's insatiable appetite for power, and he had no alternative save accepting defeat.

He drew in a deep breath, trusting his life—his entire being—to the Force. "I am ready," Arravin said.

Immediately, he felt life entering him as a drowning man would feel air touch his lungs. Komad's shade shimmered in his sight as the force of life within him intensified. "You must go to the Kashyyyk System. Speak to Chuundar of the Wookiees, he will lead you to Bindo. You must hurry!"

Before Komad's words had even faded from his ears, pain exploded through every fiber of Arravin's body, the white collapsed and he wrenched free of Bandon.

He was once again on Tatooine, facing down the Sith Lord with his lightsabre raised. Purple-white lightning crackled between Bandon's hands, and to Arravin's surprise a thin orange-red glow stretched from his own hands and into Bandon's chest. He felt the force of life flowing into him, filling him with power, more power than he'd ever felt; Komad's last sacrifice.

Once the orange fire receded, Arravin realized he was screaming.

The lightning storm crackled, pulsed, and gyrated with horrendous energy as Bandon tried once again to wrench Arravin's soul from his body. Arravin howled and pulled back, and the roiling tempest of lightning imploded with a crack of thunder. Dust and sand traveled outward from the point of inclusion in a circular shock wave.

Buffeted, Bandon glared in baleful hatred and drew his lightsabre—then staggered as a brilliant blue blade impaled his chest from behind. Juhani rose behind the Sith as he fell, pulling her sabre from his back. Arravin stared in mute surprise, then they both looked up to see Canderous lean out the Hawk's open cargo ramp and toss down a rope.

"Get on board, Jedi! Wouldn't want us to leave without you!" he yelled.

Arravin grabbed the rope gratefully and began pulling himself up. Juhani simply leaped aboard. She was going to have to teach him that someday, he thought to himself.

The ship lifted off sharply before he made it halfway, forcing him to abandon climbing and simply hold on for dear life. The Mandalorian pulled him the rest of the way and hauled him aboard. Bastila was waiting for him on deck, looking like she'd been through a blender.

"Did you find-" she started to ask, but he cut her off.

"Kashyyyk, Bindo is on Kashyyyk," he said in a rush. "Go! Tell Carth to go. Now!"

She didn't hesitate a moment, and an instant later the ground dropped off sickeningly fast as they rose through the atmosphere.

* * *

Face-down in the sand, Bandon struggled to draw a breath. Pain twisted his insides and ignominy burned at his fierce pride. He had been close enough to taste his prey, and then Revan had slipped away.

He admitted his overzeal to himself. His task was not to destroy Revan, only to deliver him to his judgment. Bandon had overstepped his bounds and his error allowed the heretic to escape. He also had underestimated the resolve and fortitude of the old Jedi Komad.

Suitably self-chastened, Bandon turned his attention to what for any man would have been a mortal wound. Bandon was not an ordinary man, he possessed the mighty power of the Force. He had hundreds of lives at his disposal. He was legion. Bandon took those lives as it were between his fingers and bled them away to heal the gaping wound in his chest. Years of life were consumed in the blink of an eye as he drew from his vast reserves to pull the seared flesh closed and reknit the savaged organs inside.

Once complete, Bandon was once again whole, but he felt the vacuum inside him crying out for sustenance after having devoted so much energy to regenerating himself. There was hunger and a terrible coldness not unlike he'd felt his whole life in the frozen city of his childhood, except that this was stronger, biting down into the very marrow of his being. It was his particular calling, his unique gift.

Bandon pulled himself up off the ground and summoned an acolyte with his communicator to bring his personal prowler to pick him up from the desert. Komad might have made it possible for Bandon's quarry to escape, but he had also pointed him straight back to Revan. And the heretic would not escape him a second time.


End file.
